When Mediums Merge : Art Meets Film, but Don’t Expect Hollywood to Be That Interested

The Scene: Opening night reception for “Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film Since 1945” at MOCA at the Temporary Contemporary on Wednesday night. The show is the first major U.S. exhibit on the affiliation between the two media.

You Should Know: Esoteric and complex, the exhibit is not a night at the multiplex. There was Fabio Mauri’s crowd-pleaser (from his series “Senza Ideologia”) in which he projects film onto everyday objects such as a bucket of milk. For the opening only, he projected the movie “Joan of Arc” on a woman’s bare chest. “I didn’t try to draw direct lines between art and cinema,” explained curator Kerry Brougher.

Who Was There: Many of the international contingent of artists whose work was represented in the show, plus locals John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Bernard and Dennis Hopper, whose photography is included; exhibition designers Ming Fung and Craig Hodgetts (“You cannot show film in a white room,” Hodgetts said, explaining the unusual blackness of much of the space), MOCA trustees such as Gordon Hampton, Richard Brawerman and Bea Gersh, plus a cameo by former Mayor Tom Bradley.

Who Wasn’t There: The short supply of delegates from the film community (save for Billy Wilder, Jonathan Dolgen, Matt Dillon, Martin Landau and Dan Melnick, among others) could either be accounted for by the rain or the challenging subject matter. “I think it’s probably true that there are more artists interested in cinema than producers interested in art,” allowed Brougher.

Quoted: “I’m not sure how much I like it, but I’m enjoying it,” opined dealer Michael Kohn of the show.

Noted: “I have the feeling it’s showing how much art is picked up from cinema and how much cinema is picked up from art,” said director Arthur Hiller, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who was struggling with the concept. His favorite piece? “I find the Andy Warhols fascinating. From movies he made stills, and from stills he made a movie [“Empire,” showing the Empire State Building from one angle for its full eight-hour running time]. That intrigues me.”

Observed: Vancouver artist Stan Douglas, whose installation involves archival film shot by Thomas Edison recut and with added voice-over, in a te^te-a-te^te with Glasgow artist Douglas Gordon, who also employed archival film for his installation in which two screens show the same movie--one at regular speed and one in slow motion. Neither appreciated a viewer’s small-world-isn’t-it? commentary.

“And we’re both named Douglas,” said Gordon.