Synopses & Reviews
Once at the margins of the art world, film now occupies a prominent place in museums and galleries. Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art explores the emergence of cinema as a primary medium of artistic production, offering an in-depth inquiry into its genesis, its defining features, and its ramifications. Erika Balsom also tackles cinema studies’ great disciplinary obsession—namely, what cinema was, is, and will become in a digital future. Rich in theoretical reflections and critical analyses, Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art offers insights into the whole history of cinema from the vantage point of today’s art.
Review
“This book is one I have been hoping to encounter for quite a while. It is rich in theoretical reflections as well as critical analyses of works, and makes a very strong case for a new form of art and a new form of cinema in one. It is theoretically complex and elegantly written.” Mieke Bal
Review
"Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art is our first sustained critical history of one of the most important dimensions of contemporary art: the encounter of the cinema with the museum, the art gallery, and new practices of moving image installation. It is also a deep examination of the persistence of a certain memory of cinema that persists as a subject of critical re-examination by the most fascinating artists of our time. It is a path-breaking book that will long remain unsurpassable." Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
About the Author
Erika Balsom is assistant professor of film studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction – The Othered Cinema
Chapter 1: Architectures of Exhibition
The “Passages” of Cinema
Projection and Patrimony
Black Box/White Cube
The New Blockbusters
The Myth of Activity
Media at MoMA
Chapter 2: Filmic Ruins
Post-medium Post-mortem
Indexing the Past
A Little History of 16mm
Ruinophilia
Analogue Aura
Chapter 3: The Remake: Old Movies, New Narratives
Ambivalent Appropriations
The Four Operations
Precursors
The False Promises of the “Utopia of Use”
Remaking Fandom
“Room-for-Play”
VCR Memories
Chapter 4: The Fiction of Truth and the Truth of Fiction
Anti-anti-illusionism
Hybrid Forms
Rehabilitating Narrative
A Return of the Deal
Two Images of Death
Conclusion – “Cinema and…”
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index