8 films

Blurb

Bill Morrison's films often source rare footage in various states of decomposition from early twentieth-century silent films and newsreels. A central feature of Morrison's extensive filmography is his reuse of 35mm nitrate film-the unstable, combustible material used for photographs and motion pictures until the 1950s-which imbues the artist's work with a sense of entropy. Film reels have been rescued and reused by Morrison in such a way that these filmic documents from cinema's past have become his own documentaries, expressive re-elaborations of the nature of decay, reflections on the history of cinema itself, and much more. For Cycles & Loops, Morrison selected a number of clips from his entire filmography. The exhibition presents nine loops of different lengths varying from a few seconds to five minutes. Though stripped of their contexts-that is, their original filmic source or their remediated presence in his own movies-each loop offers a semblance of a narrative. This catalog is published in conjunction with the exhibition Bill Morrison: Cycles & Loops, organized by the Visual Arts Center at The University of Texas at Austin and on view January 28 - March 12, 2022. A new version of the exhibition is presented by Colby College Museum of Art August 18 - December 23, 2023. The catalog includes a foreword by Mackenzie Stevens, director of the Visual Arts Center, an essay by Donato Loia, curator of the exhibition, and a conversation with the artist.