Jerome: Hill and Foundation
October 24–November 2, 2005

To mark the centennial of the birth of philanthropist and artist Jerome Hill (1905–1972), the Department of Film and Media presents an exhibition celebrating his film work and his legacy, the Jerome Foundation. Included are two major feature films by Hill, Albert Schweitzer (1957) and Film Portrait (1965–71), both recently restored by The Museum of Modern Art, and eight programs of films and videos by New York artists who received production grants from the Jerome Foundation and whose works were acquired by MoMA with Foundation funds. Also shown are two programs of recently underwritten projects and a selection of media works by artists from Minnesota, where the Foundation’s headquarters is located. Since 1964, the Jerome Foundation has made grants to support the creation and production of works by emerging artists and contributed to their professional advancement. Like Hill, who worked in many mediums, the Foundation is involved in various areas of creative endeavor beyond cinema and performance. The Foundation continues to play a critical role in the development of cutting-edge media work in Minnesota and New York City. A panel discussion about the notion of “emerging” in the media arts takes place during the exhibition.

Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Media, with the collaboration of Cynthia Gehrig, Executive Director, Jerome Foundation.

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 1
Pony Glass. 1977. USA. Directed by Lewis Klahr. Animation. 15 min.
These Are Not My Images (Neither There nor Here). 2000. USA/France/Germany/Great Britain/India. Directed by Irit Batsry. An interweaving of different types of imagery, from unadorned to painterly, and different modes of storytelling, from fragmentary and allusive to traditional. In India, a Western filmmaker is accompanied by a half-blind guide. 88 min.
Monday, October 24, 5:30. T2

Restored by MoMA: Program 1
Film Portrait. 1965–71. USA. Written, directed, produced, and scored by Jerome Hill. An exemplary diary film shown precisely thirty-three years after its world premiere at MoMA on October 24 in 1972. A self-reflexive film about the process of becoming an artist and a family history with an emphasis on Hill’s grandfather, James J. Hill, who built railroads across America. 80 min.
Monday, October 24, 7:15; Saturday, October 29, 2:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 2
Moment of Impact. 1998. USA. Written and directed by Julia Loktev. While crossing the street, Loktev’s father gets hit by a car. A Russian immigrant and computer programmer, he recovers but is brain damaged, and Loktev’s mother becomes his permanent caregiver. Using Hi-8 video that was later transferred to film, Loktev examines the strain and heartbreak of unexpected catastrophe. 117 min.
Wednesday, October 26, 8:30. T2

Recent Jerome Funding: Program 1
Flag Wars. 2003. USA. Directed by Linda Goode Bryant, Laura Poitras. Following the process of gentrification over a four-year period, Flag Wars is a poignant account of competing economic interests between two historically oppressed groups: African Americans and gays. 86 min.
Thursday, October 27, 6:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 3
Nobody’s Business. 1996. USA. Directed by Alan Berliner. When the filmmaker tries to empathize with his reluctant father’s loneliness—he told his son it was “nobody’s business”—parent and child reach an understanding. 60 min.
Dance of Darkness. 1989. USA/Japan/France. Directed by Edin Velez. With Tatsumi Hijakata, Kazuo Ohno. A multilayered documentary on Butoh, a powerful avant-garde form of Japanese dance. 55 min.
Thursday, October 27, 8:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 4
Anathema. 1995. USA. Directed by Julie Murray. Using found and shot footage, Murray contemplates doctors, medicine, and death. 7 min.
Switch Center. 2002. Hungary/USA. Directed by Ericka Beckman. Men move machinery and a woman bosses. Suddenly her position is threatened. Beckman, a media and performance artist, imagines a compelling dystopia. 12 min.
Four or Five Accidents, One June. 1989. USA. Directed by Roddy Bogawa. One of Bogawa’s earliest films, made on the West Coast, is a darkly comic version of a personal history. 25 min.
Mercy. 1989. USA. Directed by Abigail Child. The seventh and final part of Child’s series investigating the aggressions of the twentieth century, Is This What I Was Born For? 10 min.
Milk of Amnesia. 1992. USA. Directed by Jeff Scher. A peppy, invigorating animation. 6 min. Program 60 min.
Friday, October 28, 6:00. T2

Jerome Foundation Panel Discussion
How does the term “emerging” apply to the media arts? Participants include film and video artists who have received Jerome Foundation grants in New York City. Moderated by Laurence Kardish. 90 min.
Friday, October 28, 7:45. T2

Restored by MoMA: Program 2
Albert Schweitzer. 1957. USA. Directed and produced by Jerome Hill. Cinematography by Erica Anderson. Photographed in Schweitzer’s Alsatian hometown, Gunsbach, and at his jungle clinic in Lambarene, French Equatorial Africa, Hill’s film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1958. Fredric March reads narration written by Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s sister and grandson play his mother and himself. 88 min.

Saturday, October 29, 4:00; Wednesday, November 2, 8:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 5
Wax, or The Discovery of the Television among the Bees. 1991. USA. Directed by David Blair. With Blair, William Burroughs. Possibly the first media work to be broadcast over the Internet, this feature-length video is a strange and compelling work of fantasy. A weapons-guidance designer inherits bees from his grandfather and becomes a committed apiarist. With a will of their own, the bees puncture Max’s head and insert a television into his brain. 85 min.
Saturday, October 29, 6:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 6
Work. 1997. USA. Written, directed, and co-edited by Rachel Reichman. With Cynthia Kaplan, Somja Sohn, Peter Sprague. An atmospheric narrative about life, race, and class in a failed mill town and the aspirations of two young women in love: a married white woman and a black university student. 93 min.
Saturday, October 29, 8:00. T2

Recent Jerome Funding: Program 2
Lower East Side Stories. 2003. USA. Written and directed by Liselle Mei. Four nonfiction vignettes about the struggle for validation and fulfillment in a changing New York neighborhood. 38 min.
Like Twenty Impossibles. 2003. USA/Palestine. Directed by Annemarie Jacir. Cowritten by Jacir and Kamran Rasegar. Jacir, a Palestinian poet living in New York, returns to Israel with a crew to film in the Palestinian Territories. 17 min.
The Bachar Tapes [English version]. 2001. USA/Lebanon. Directed by Walid Ra’ad and the Atlas Group. Souheil Bachar, the only Arab kidnapped during the Western Hostage Crisis of the 1980s and 1990s in Beirut, spent some of his ten-year incarceration with American detainees. The Atlas Group has made available two of the fifty-three tapes Bachar recorded about his captivity. A recent MoMA acquisition. 17 min. Program 72 min.
Sunday, October 30, 2:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 7
Third Known Nest. 1991–97. USA. Directed by Tom Kalin. Ten interrelated videos tracing a biographical trajectory from AIDS activism to contemplations on love, loss, and self-portraiture. 38 min.
Lost Book Found. 1994. USA. Directed by Jem Cohen. On a New York street a notebook full of mysterious listings—a code?—is discovered. 33 min.
Sunday, October 30, 4:00. T2

MoMA/Jerome Acquisitions: Program 8
The Deadman. 1989. USA. Directed by Peggy Ahwesh, Keith Sanborn. A low-budget, gritty and effective interpretation of Georges Bataille’s provocative, posthumously published short story “Le Mort” (1967). 38 min.
Peggy and Fred in Hell. USA. Directed by Leslie Thornton. Program includes: Peggy and Fred in Kansas (1987), Peggy and Fred and Pete (1989), and Dung Smoke Enters the Palace (1989). An epic video series about two children in a house, the apocalypse, Jack Nicholson, and Amelia Earhart. 50 min.
Monday, October 31, 8:00. T2

Jerome Minneapolis Grantees

Silent Shadows. 1995. Directed by John Killacky, Steven Grandell. About loss. 11 min.
This Car Up! 2003. Directed by Eric Mueller. About the possibility of meeting someone. 16 min.

County Line. 2003. Directed by Chris Larson. About beauty. 10 min.

Souvenir. 1995. Directed by Greg Cummins and Shawn McConneloug. About dance. 5 min.

Joy Street. 1995. Directed by Suzan Pitt. An animated film with an ironic title. 25 min. Program 67 min.

Wednesday, November 2, 6:15. T2

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