10/17/17 // Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob

Posted October 14th, 2017 in Canyon Cinema 50, Co-Presentations, Events and Screenings, News / Events

Five Artists

Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob
Tuesday, October 17th, 2017 // 7:00pm
San Francisco Art Institute // 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco
$10.00 General Admission (free for Cinematheque members and SFAI students, staff and faculty)
Facebook Event

Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque and San Francisco Art Institute’s Graduate Lecture Series. Part of SF Cinematheque’s fall series Center of Gravity: Gunvor Nelson & Dorothy Wiley.

Special guests TBA.

Read a full press release for this event here.

“A personal tribute to artist friendship, this 1971 filmic collaboration reflects on a moment in time in the lives and careers of Bay Area legends William Allan, William Geis, Robert Hudson, Robert Nelson and William T. Wiley. These painters, sculptors and filmmakers and their circle associated with Funk art enjoyed a certain freedom on the West Coast to forge their own territory and forms of expression. Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley were drawn to documenting the spirit of how this close-knit group, affiliated with SFAI as students and faculty, were ‘working together, dreaming together, and had this unusual and interesting rapport’ (Nelson). Five Artists offers a collective portrait of the everyday life of these artists and their families in Marin County. Alternating between color and black-and-white footage, Nelson and Wiley interweave non-synchronous commentary by the artists and their acquaintances.

As friends living in Marin County, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley began making films together in the 1960s that foregrounded their personal experiences while examining issues of family, parenthood, partnership and domestic life in the In the context of artist filmmaking in Northern California. Featuring original soundtracks, their collaborative and solo films explore the poetics of everyday life, from portraits of motherhood to close studies of various bodies. Nelson, who is now based in Sweden, and Wiley were among the earliest members of the cooperative Canyon Cinema. An influential force, Gunvor Nelson taught at SFAI from 1970 to 1992.” -Tanya Zimbardo

Center of Gravity: Gunvor Nelson & Dorothy Wiley, program one

Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob by Gunvor Nelson & Dorothy Wiley (1971, 70 min, color/B&W)

Canyon Cinema is thankful for the long term support of the George Lucas Family Foundation. Dedicated project funding for Canyon Cinema 50 has been generously provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Owsley Brown III Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and The Fleishhacker Foundation.