LOS ANGELES, CA — An active and dynamic platform for the presentation of artist films, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Artist Film Series returns to MOCA Grand Avenue on August 17 and runs through November 30, 2023. Inspired by film and video works in MOCA’s renowned collection and centered in the cinema capital of the world, the series offers engaging and notable screenings and live programs with MOCA collection artists and beyond. This fall’s series features works by Ulysses Jenkins, Diane Severin Nguyen, Park Chan-kyong, Park Chan-wook, Zineb Sedira, and Ai Weiwei. Presented in the Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA Grand Avenue, screenings feature artists in dialogue with fellow artists, historians, and critics. These programs explore the critical issues of our time and our place with a special focus on experiments in long-form, narrative, or feature-length films.
To launch the series on August 17, Ulysses Jenkins‘s Remnants of the Watts Festival, 1972-1973 (1980) showcases electrifying performances at the Watts Summer Festival, founded in 1966 (a year after the Watts Uprising) as a way to celebrate African American culture and heritage. Jenkins’s film includes interviews with festival-goers and organizers who discuss Watts’ often tenuous relationship with law enforcement. On September 7, Diane Severin Nguyen‘s Tyrant Star (2009), filmed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, explores cultural fragmentation and reconnection; and IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS (2009) loosely follows the character of an orphaned Vietnamese child who grows up to be absorbed into a South Korean pop-inspired dance group.
Ai Weiwei’s Chang’an Boulevard (2004) runs continuously during regular museum hours from September 21-22. Composed of 608 one-minute segments and running over 10 hours long in duration, Chang’an Boulevard traces the forty-five-kilometer-long thoroughfare that extends east to west, bisecting the megalopolis of Beijing, China. The series continues on October 26 with Park Chan-kyong and Park Chan-wook‘s KT iPhone Project NIGHT FISHING (2011), a rare collaboration between the two brothers, shot entirely with an iPhone 4 and which received the prestigious Golden Bear Award. This short film revolves around a fisherman who catches a fish that turns into a young woman upon reaching the shore, weaving together their shared interest in reincarnation, the supernatural and the genre of horror. Finally, on November 30, through the archives of the Algerian Cinémathèque, Zineb Sedira‘s Dreams Have No Titles (2022) delves into the history of cultural and avant-garde film production in Algeria and its influence on postcolonial movements and the fight for liberation.
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General admission to MOCA is free courtesy of Carolyn Clark Powers.
Together Thursdays courtesy of Cliff and Mandy Einstein.
All screenings are free with advance reservations. Tickets for each screening will be released on a rolling basis and become available up to 21 days in advance. MOCA Members enjoy early access to ticketing reservations. For complete program and ticketing details, please visit moca.org/artistfilmseries.
The MOCA Artist Film Series is organized by Clara Kim, Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs, with Alitzah Oros, Public Programming Associate, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
MOCA Artist Film Series is presented by The Edward F. Limato Foundation.
