The Films of Phil Solomon
Thursday, April 8th at 9pm - $9.50
The Charles Theatre
Magic Eye and Johns Hopkins University are pleased to host an evening of film and conversation with acclaimed experimental filmmaker Phil Solomon. Visiting the east coast for the opening of his multimedia installation “American Falls” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Phil Solomon will make his Baltimore debut at the Charles Theater. The screening will include excerpts from “American Falls” and a selection of his films and videos, including his 1989 film “Remains To Be Seen” which Stan Brakhage named as one of his Top Ten Films of All Time for Sight and Sound magazine.
Solomon’s film work employs an array of chemical and optical treatments to explore the natural state of decay of 16mm film. The results produce a molten emulsion unique to his cinema, a visually mesmerizing struggle between a captured image and the materiality of the medium.
"Although part of a long avant-garde tradition, Mr. Solomon makes films that look like no others I've seen. The conceit of the filmmaker as auteur has rarely been more appropriate or defensible — The liberating effect of Mr. Solomon's work suggests a rather different realm: Film Meets Vision, Rejoice!" – Manolha Dargis, New York Times
His recent video series called “In Memoriam, Mark Lapore” operates in the genre of machinima. Appropriating scenes from the lawless world of Grand Theft Auto, Solomon quells the crime wave and creates a trance-like wandering through a desolate urban landscape. The trilogy, named as one of the Top Experimental Films of 2007 by the Village Voice, will close the evening’s program.
Phil Solomon teaches at University of Colorado – Boulder. He has participated in two Whitney Biennials and has had three Cineprobes (one-man shows) at the Museum of Modern Art. He has won a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1993) and The Thatcher Hoffman Smith Award (2007), as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Capital Foundation.
