With America on the brain, it seems like the perfect time to talk about the excellent screening series the Whitney Museum is running as part of America Is Hard to See. The inaugural exhibit at the Museum’s spacious new Renzo Piano-designed building in the Meatpacking district, America Is Hard to See reexamines the history of American art from 1900 to today and is made up of works culled from the Museum’s permanent collection. For the film component, the curators have organized over 15 different programs presenting films by approximately fifty artists. The programs screen on select Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in the Museum’s Susan and John Hess Family Theater.

The programs either feature a single film or are organized around a theme. Highlights of the single film programs include Mike Kelley’s high school yearbook photo-inspired Day is Done (2005–6), Andrea Fraser’s fictional docent tour through the Philadelphia Art Museum Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk (1989), and Liz Magic Laser’s I Feel Your Pain. Laser’s project is part of her Performa 2011 commission. It features various bits of dialogue from the news and current events and recasts them in a new narrative. Also screening is Andy Warhol’s Henry Geldzahler (1964). Warhol shot the notable art critic and curator smoking a cigar and becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

As for the multi-film programs, we recommend “Normal Love“, which includes works by Jack Smith, David Wojnarowicz, Nayland Blake and Kenneth Anger, “Colorwork“, a program that investigates the intersection of color and form with films by Richard Serra, John Baldessari and Mary Ellen Bute, and the all-80s program “Popular Mechanics” that spotlights works by Dara Birnbaum, Dan Graham, Ericka Beckman and Charles Atlas. Also of note are “Dream States” featuring Maya Deren and Hans Richter, and the one-night only screening that brings together Walter de Maria’s rarely seen Hardcore (1969) and Paul Sharits’s two-projection cinematic performance Shutter Interface (1972). It occurs on September 5.

All screenings in this series are free with museum admission and some feature special guests and screenings of works on film. See below for the complete schedule. For additional information about the series, visit the Whitney Museum website.

America is Hard To See Film Series

Nayland Blake (b. 1960), still from Negative Bunny, 1994.
© Nayland Blake 1994;
image courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Normal Love
July 3, 11 am
August 22, 7 pm
September 6, 4 pm
Films: Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures (1962–63), David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly (1986–87), Nayland Blake’s Negative Bunny (1994), and Kenneth Anger’s Mouse Heaven (2005)

Mike Kelley’s Day Is Done (2005-6)
July 3, 2 pm
August 16, 11 am
September 19, 1 pm

The Art of Vision
July 3, 8 pm
August 21, 11 am
September 19, 5 pm
Films: Julie Murray’s Untitled (light) (2002), Sandra Gibson’s NYC Flower Film (2003), Stan Brakhage’s Chinese Series (2003), Bryan Frye’s Oona’s Veil (2000), Luis Recoder’s Linea (2002), and Matt Saunders’s Century Rolls (2012). On September 19, Sandra Gibson’s NYC Flower Film screens on film, and Gibson is attending.

Dream States
July 4, 11 am
August 16, 3 pm
September 6, 2 pm
Films: Maya Deren’s At Land (1944) and Hans Richter’s Dreams that Money Can Buy (1947)

Inner and Outer Territories
July 4, 3 pm
August 21, 2 pm
September 6, 11 am
Films: Yvonne Rainer’s Five Easy Pieces (1966–69), David Lamelas’ The Desert People (1974), Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1978) and Walter De Maria’s Hardcore (1969)

Radical Takes
July 4, 6 pm
August 23, 11 am
August 30, 4 pm
Films: Howardena Pindell’s Free, White and 21 (1980), Cynthia Maughan’s sixteen selected videos (1973–78), and Suzanne Lacy’s Learn Where the Meat Comes From (1976)

Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981), still from I Feel Your Pain, 2011.
Photograph by Yola Monakhov

Lyrical Observations
July 5, 11 am
August 14, 7 pm
August 29, 11 am
Films: Robert Beavers’s Sotiros (1975–96), Kevin Jerome Everson’s Act One: Betty and the Candle (2010), Anna Gaskell’s SOSW Ballet (2011), and David Hartt’s Stray Light (2011)

Liz Magic Laser’s I Feel Your Pain (A Performa Commission)
July 5, 1 pm
August 22, 2 pm
September 18, 6 pm

Lifted Frames
July 5, 5 pm
August 22, 6 pm
August 28, 11 am
Films: Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s Cowboy and “Indian” Film (1957–58) and Morgan Fisher’s ( ) (2003). The program on August 22 includes a special screening of Christian Marclay’s Telephones (1995).

Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939), still from Meat Joy, 1964.
Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

Mind Eye Body
July 10, 11 am
August 23, 5 pm
August 29, 3 pm
Films: Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy (1964), Michael Joo’s Salt Transfer Cycle (1994) and Stan Brakhage’s Persian Series 13–18 (2001)

Structures and Gestures
July 10, 1 pm
August 30, 11 am
September 20, 11 am
Films: Hollis Frampton’s (HAPAXLEGOMENA I) (1973), Gordon Matta-Clark’s Splitting (1974), Peter Campus’s third tape (1976), David Haxton’s Cube and Room Drawings (1976–77) and Alex Hubbard Dos Nacionales (2008).

Popular Mechanics
July 12, 11 am
August 21, 6 pm
September 5, 2 pm
Films: Dara Birnbaum’s PM Magazine/Acid Rock (1982), Dan Graham’s Rock My Religion (1982–84), Ericka Beckman’s You the Better (1983), and Charles Atlas’s Hail the New Puritan (1986)

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Henry Geldzahler, 1964.
Image courtesy the Andy Warhol Film Project
at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Andy Warhol’s Henry Geldzahler (1964)
August 14, 11 am
August 28, 7 pm
September 5, 11 am

Colorwork
August 14, 3 pm
August 29, 7 pm
September 20, 2 pm
Films: Mary Ellen Bute’s Synchromy No. 4: Escape (1937–38), Spook Sport (1939), and Tarantella (1940), Richard Serra’s Color Aid (1970–71), John Baldessari’s Six Colorful Inside Jobs (1977) and Amy Sillman’s Draft of a Voice-Over for Split-Screen Video Loop (2012). On August 29, works by Mary Ellen Bute screen on film.

Beat Life, Street Life
August 15, 2 pm
August 30, 2 pm
September 18, 11 am
Films: Helen Levitt’s In the Street (1952), Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie’s Pull My Daisy (1959), David Bienstock’s Nothing Happened This Morning (1965), and Lucas Samaras’s Self (1969)

Andrea Fraser’s Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk
August 15, 4 pm
August 23, 1 pm
September 18, 3 pm

Walter De Maria (1935-2013), still from
Hardcore, 1969. © Walter De Maria 1969

Chronicles and Diaries
August 15, 6 pm
August 28, 2 pm
September 4, 11 am
Films: Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s Newsreel (1958) and Jonas Mekas’s Lost Lost Lost (1976). On August 15, Jonas Mekas’s Lost Lost Lost screens on film.

Walter De Maria’s Hardcore and Paul Sharits’ Shutter Interface
September 5, 7–8 pm

Luis Recoder’s Linea (2002)
September 19, 7–10 pm
The artist is attending

(Image above: Mary Ellen Bute (1906-1983), still from Synchromy No. 4: Escape, 1937-38. Courtesy Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst, Berlin)