Street Scenes: Street Photography and the Moving Image

Opening Wednesday, November 12th

Exhibition runs November 12th - December 12th

“Street Scenes: Street Photography and the Moving Image” will be a gallery exhibition and screening series presenting works by major visual artists James Nares, Ken Jacobs, Jem Cohen and Cheryl Dunn. Each guest artist will display street photography and video works in the Brandon Gallery and present screenings at the Brandon, Menil Collection and Sundance Cinemas.

The series takes a wide-ranging look at street life as it is stimulated and captured by cameras. The film series begins with Everybody Street, Cheryl Dunn’s illuminating film of street photographers at work. Dunn is herself a noted street photographer, and her exhibit at the Brandon will feature her photographs and videos of street art and her street artist friends, including Mark Gonzales, Margaret Kilgallen and Chris Johanson.

James Nares is best known for his remarkable abstract paintings, but he recently wowed audiences at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sundance Film Festival with his 62-minute installation Street, a super slow-motion film of a drive through New York City streets. Nares will present Street at the Brandon and as a free theatrical presentation in the lobby of the Menil Collection on Thursday, Nov. 13. He will supplement his Menil presentation with the 1976 film Pendulum and appear at the Brandon on Nov. 15 to present a more extensive compilation of his Super 8 and video films from 1976 through the present.

Jem Cohen, well known for the uncanny street photographer’s eye that distinguished his music videos and films for the likes of Patti Smith, R.E.M. and Fugazi, had a theatrical film success last year with his Museum Hours. At the Brandon, in addition to showing several short videos, Cohen will display ghostly Polaroids he has taken of New York streets over the past 30 years. At Sundance Cinemas, Cohen will present – for the first time – a compilation of short films he has made of political street actions, including a set of “newsreels” he produced on the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Ken Jacobs will present his cinematic rendering of Occupy Wall Street, Blankets for Indians, in 3D at Sundance Cinemas on Nov. 15. A legendary avant-garde filmmaker, Jacobs has long been known for his experimentation with 3D film and perception. The street photographs and videos he will present at the Brandon are also exhibited in 3D. Both Cohen and Jacobs were deeply inspired by the classic street photography film In the Street by Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and James Agee, and the pair will show and discuss it, as well as their own gallery exhibits, at the Brandon on Nov. 13.