NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART OFFERS ACTIVITIES RELATED TO "FOTO: MODERNITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1918–1945"
June 10–September 3, 2007

Washington, DC – The National Gallery of Art will offer a diverse program of lectures, films, and concerts in conjunction with Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945, on view June 10 through September 3, 2007, in the West Building Photography Galleries. This is the first exhibition to survey photography’s phenomenal success in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, and Poland in a time of social and political upheaval.

All programs are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. For more information, call (202) 737-4215, visit the Web site at www.nga.gov, or inquire at the Art Information Desks.

LECTURE PROGRAM
2:00 p.m., East Building Auditorium

Modernization of Life through Art
June 3
Michal Bregant, FAMU, Prague

Foto and Modernity: An Overview
June 10
Matthew S. Witkovsky, National Gallery of Art

Mirrors, Phantoms, and Memories
June 17
Jaroslav Anděl, DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Prague

Between Surrealism and Constructivism:
Avant-Garde and Film in Central Europe in the 1920s and 1930s
June 24
Marcin Giżycki, Rhode Island School of Design

PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM
History and the New Photography
June 23, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium

Illustrated lectures by Monika Faber, Albertina; Olivier Lugon, Lausanne University; Douglas Nickel, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson and University of Arizona at Tucson; Melanie Ventilla, Columbia University; and Peter Zusi, Davis Center, Harvard Univeristy. The symposium will be moderated by Steven A. Mansbach, University of Maryland, and will be followed by a panel discussion.

CONCERTS

Hartmut Rohde, violist, and Mykola Suk, pianist
June 13, 12:10 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall
Music by Hindemith and other German composers

Boris Krajný, pianist, and Derek Katz, lecturer
June 17,6:30 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Music by Czech composers, with commentary

Vilmos Szabadi, violinist, and Balázs Szokolay, pianist
June 20,12:10 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall
Music by Bartók and other Hungarian composers

Elena Letnanova, pianist
June 24, 6:30 p.m.
West Garden Court
Music by Slovak composers

Elisabeth von Magnus, mezzo-soprano, and Jacob Bogaart, pianist
June 27, 12:10 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall
Music by Schoenberg and other Austrian composers

Royal String Quartet
July 1, 6:30 p.m.
West Garden Court
Music by Szymanowski and other Polish composers

GALLERY TALKS
Gallery talks of the exhibition will be offered by the education division in July and August, please consult the Calendar of Events or www.nga.gov for further updates.

FILM PROGRAM

The National Gallery of Art has planned several interrelated film series that will complement the exhibition and present many works from central Europe that have not been seen before in the United States. All programs take place in the East Building Auditorium.

Czech Modernism 1920–1940
May 26, June 2 and 16 at 2:00 p.m.
May 12, 19, and 26, June 2, 9, and 17 at 4:00 p.m.
May 13 at 4:30 p.m.

The rise of modernist principles in Czech cinema is examined in a twelve-film retrospective. On June 3, the silent film Kreutzer Sonata will feature live piano and violin accompaniment under the direction of pianist Donald Sosin. Two films by the prominent director Gustav Machatý and a selection of films addressing social problems are also among the highlights. This retrospective is organized through the cooperation of Irena Kovarova and the Czech Center, New York.

New Romany Cinema from Hungary
June 30 at 2:30

A selection of recent works by Romany filmmakers renders their gypsy subjects with blunt honesty, irony, and bold poetry, defying the clichés of exoticism frequently found in films outside the community. Special thanks to Magda Zalán, Katalin Vajda, and Magyar Filmunió. Dallas Pashamende (Robert-Adrian Pejo, 2005, 35 mm, Hungarian, Romanian, and gypsy dialect with subtitles, 93 minutes) Never-Never Gypsyland (Katalin Macskássy, 2003, Hungarian with subtitles,7 minutes), Szafari (Róbert Pölcz and Boglárka Pölcz, 2002, no dialogue, 10 minutes), and Gypsy Moon (István Malgot, 2001, Betasp, Hungarian with
subtitles, 54 minutes).

Goya’s Ghosts
Washington Premiere
Milos Forman in person
July 8 at 4:30

Milos Forman’s most recent film (a collaboration with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière) is a visual feast. A rousing account of Spanish life as witnessed by Francisco Goya, 18th-century court painter and celebrated society observer, the film covers the period from the end of the Inquisition through Napoleon’s invasion. Cast includes Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Randy Quaid, and Natalie Portman. (Milos Forman, 2006, 35 mm, 114 minutes).

New City Symphonies
August 5 at 4:00

City symphonies—fleeting, lyrical views of urban settings—have been a key experimental film genre since the 1920s. This program updates the once popular genre to focus on recent examples. Opening with Rudy Burckhardt’s classic New York portrait Square Times (1967) and including Sway (2006), Pushcarts of Eternity Street (2006), American Parade (2006), Girl with Dog (2005), A Trip to the City (2005), Cairo by Night (2006), and others, the program provides a contrast to the classic city films presented in the series Modernity and Tradition. (Total running time approximately 110 minutes).

Lech Majewski
Polish painter, poet, stage director, and Łódz Film School alumnus Lech Majewski (b. 1953) writes, directs, shoots, edits, and composes music for his beautifully crafted films and media art. His stylized work often eschews language in favor of fantastical imagery, poetry, and music. “His imagination,” wrote Laurence Kardish of the Museum of Modern Art, “is informed by a unique sensibility hovering between the absurd and the metaphysical, the beautiful and the profane.”

August 11 at 2:30
Lech Majewski in person
The Knight (Rycerz) (1980, 35 mm, Polish with subtitles, 81 minutes)
The Roe’s Room (1997, Betasp,sung in Polish without subtitles, 90 minutes)

August 12 at 4:30
Lech Majewski in person
The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004, 35 mm, 103 minutes)

August 19 at 4:30
Angelus (2000, 35 mm, Polish with subtitles, 103 minutes)

Ringl and Pit
August 23 and 24 at 12:30

Pioneering photographers Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach were the “ringl + pit” studio of 1920s Berlin. Students of Bauhaus artist Walter Peterhans, Stern and Auerbach challenged the expectations of their day, creating photographs that subverted the images of women in mainstream advertising. In the film they share their past and discuss their latest accomplishments. (Juan Mandelbaum, 1996, 16 mm, 56 minutes)

Miss Universe of 1929
August 25 at 3:00

The delicate history of cousins Lisl Goldarbeiter and Marci Tänzer, both born in 1907 to a large middle-class Austro-Hungarian Jewish family, is beautifully retold by Hungarian avant-garde filmmaker Péter Forgács. While conveying the fascinating chronicleof this family, Miss Universe of 1929 also tells the amazing tale of Lisl’s rise to beauty pageant stardom—she was the first Miss Universe—as a direct result of Marci’s amateur home-moviemaking. (Péter Forgács, 2006, Digital Beta, German with subtitles, 70 minutes)

New Austrian Experimental Cinema
September 1 at 3:00, September 2 at 4:30

Austria’s reputation for dynamic experimental cinema is demonstrated in these recent short avant-garde works combining abstraction and narrative and revealing the filmmakers’ distinctive command of their medium. Aquarena (Josef Dabernig, Isabella Hollauf ); Being and Nothingness (Bady Minck); Elements (Dariusz Kowalski); A Million in Debt Is Normal, Said My Grandfather (Gabriele Mathes); Planes (Thomas Fürhapter); Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Peter Tscherkassky) areamong the selections. (Total running time approximately 85 minutes). Special thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Image Before My Eyes and Partisans of Vilna
September 3 at 1:00

Joshua Waletzky’s landmark documentary, Image Before My Eyes, uses historical footage of urban and rural life as well as interviews with survivors of the period to tell the story of Jewish life in Poland between the two world wars. (Joshua Waletzky,1981, 35 mm, 90 minutes). Partisans of Vilna, a valuable record of the World War II era, focuses on a city that for centuries was a center of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. Interviews—some rousing (such as the story of Schmidt, an Austrian sergeant who smuggled Jews), some bizarre and incongruous (like the story of Rosenberg, whose scholarly project was titled Jewish Studies without Jews)—are the core of the documentary. (Joshua Waletzky and Aviva Kempner,1986, 35 mm, 130 minutes). Introduction by Aviva Kempner.

MODERNITY AND TRADITION: FILM IN INTERWAR CENTRAL EUROPE
June 24–August 25, times to be announced
East Building Auditorium

In close harmony with the exhibition, this series of 34 documentaries, features, and experimental cinema presents both well-known and rarely seen films in six thematic programs. The series, which is accompanied by a detailed brochure with an essay by the program’s curator, Sonja Simonyi, will travel with the exhibition to venues in New York, Milwaukee, and Edinburgh.

Introducing “Modernity and Tradition”
East Building Auditorium
June 24, 2:00 p.m.
Marcin Giżycki, Rhode Island School of Design

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945, written by exhibition curator Matthew S. Witkovsky and published by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with Thames & Hudson, London and New York, also includes an introduction by Peter Demetz, professor emeritus at Yale University; biographies of the artists; an extensive bibliography; and maps of the region showing the geopolitical shifts of the early 20th century. The publication will be available in late May 2007 from the National Gallery of Art by phone at (202) 842-6002 or (800) 697-9350 ($60.00 hardcover, $45.00 softcover, 310 pages, 192 color and 59 black-and-white illustrations).

EXHIBITION SUPPORT

Sponsored by the Central Bank of Hungary.

The exhibition is made possible by the generous support of the Trellis Fund.

Additional support has been provided by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation, and The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.

The exhibition catalogue is published with the assistance of The Getty Foundation.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART OFFERS ACTIVITIES RELATED TO "FOTO: MODERNITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1918–1945" June 10–September 3, 2007

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART OFFERS ACTIVITIES RELATED TO "FOTO: MODERNITY IN CENTRAL EUROPE, 1918–1945"
June 10–September 3, 2007