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Maya Deren’s Legacy: Women and Experimental Film
May 15–July 23, 2010
Learn more about the publication Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art
Maya Deren (American, 1917–1961) was a visionary of American experimental film in the 1940s and 1950s. A precocious student, she studied poetry and literature at New York University and Smith College, where she
became interested in the arts. While working for modern-dance choreographer Katherine Dunham, Deren met her future husband, filmmaker Alexander Hammid, who introduced her to European avant-garde film. In 1943, the couple collaborated on the short film Meshes of the Afternoon, which has since become one of the most widely influential films of the American experimental-film movement.
Deren, who received the first Guggenheim Foundation grant for “creative work in the field of motion pictures” and formed the Creative Film Foundation to broaden support for experimental film, continued making and self-distributing her own films and lecturing and writing about avant-garde cinema theory until her untimely death at the age of forty-four. Her pioneering formal innovations—performing in front of the camera, using semiautobiographical content, and meshing literary, psychological, and ethnographic disciplines with rigorous technique—inspired future generations of experimental filmmakers.
This exhibition, which consists of a video installation in the Theater Galleries and short-film programs in the theaters, examines Deren’s legacy through both her own work and that of a trio of women directors upon whom she had an indelible influence: Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer, and Su Friedrich.
Deren, who received the first Guggenheim Foundation grant for “creative work in the field of motion pictures” and formed the Creative Film Foundation to broaden support for experimental film, continued making and self-distributing her own films and lecturing and writing about avant-garde cinema theory until her untimely death at the age of forty-four. Her pioneering formal innovations—performing in front of the camera, using semiautobiographical content, and meshing literary, psychological, and ethnographic disciplines with rigorous technique—inspired future generations of experimental filmmakers.
This exhibition, which consists of a video installation in the Theater Galleries and short-film programs in the theaters, examines Deren’s legacy through both her own work and that of a trio of women directors upon whom she had an indelible influence: Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer, and Su Friedrich.
Organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film. This exhibition is presented in conjunction with MoMA’s publication of Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art (June 2010).
Related Film Screenings
Upcoming
Past
Deren, Schneemann, Friedrich, and Hammer Program
Meshes of the Afternoon
1943. USA. Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid. 14 min.
Fuses
1964–66. USA. Carolee Schneemann. 18 min.
Cool Hands, Warm Heart
1979. USA. Su Friedrich. 16 min.
I Was/I Am
1983. USA. Barbara Hammer. 7 min.
Maya Deren Program I
Meshes of the Afternoon
1943. USA. Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid. 14 min.
At Land
1942. USA. Maya Deren. 14 min.
Ritual in Transfigured Time
1946. USA. Maya Deren. 15 min.
A Study in Choreography for Camera
1945. USA. Maya Deren, with choreographer and dancer Talley Beatty. 4 min.
The Very Eye of Night
1952–59. USA. Deren, with choreographer Antony Tudor. 14 min.
Carolee Schneemann Program
Fuses
1964–66. USA. Carolee Schneemann. 18 min.
Plumb Line
1971. USA. Carolee Schneemann. 18 min.
Viet Flakes
1965. USA. Carolee Schneemann. 11 min.
Su Friedrich Program I
Cool Hands, Warm Heart
1979. USA. Su Friedrich. 16 min.
Damned if You Don’t
1984. USA. Su Friedrich. 55 min.
Su Friedrich Program II
Sink or Swim
1990. USA. Su Friedrich. 48 min.
The Ties That Bind
1984. USA. Su Friedrich. 55 min.
Barbara Hammer Program
I Was/I Am
1983. USA. Barbara Hammer. 7 min.
Bent Time
1983. USA. Barbara Hammer. 18 min.
Optic Nerve
1985. USA. Barbara Hammer. 16 min.
A Horse Is Not a Metaphor
2008. USA. Barbara Hammer. 30 min.
Meshes of the Afternoon. 1943. USA. Directed by Maya Deren. Acquired from the artist
Related Publication
Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art
Edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz
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