The Department of Film and Media joins P.S.1, a MoMA affiliate, in celebrating the achievements of Manny Farber as both artist and film critic. P.S.1’s concurrent exhibition Manny Farber: About Face aptly describes Farber’s approach to painting: restless and unpretentious, which is also true of Farber’s film writings. Farber’s feisty and illuminating perspectives on contemporary commercial cinema refreshed the pages of The New Republic, The Nation, and The New Leader during the 1940s and 1950s. Farber also wrote essays for various journals, and his Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies was first published in 1971. Farber is now Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Visual Arts at the University of California.
Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Media.