Space in the Brain

How the art in the Detroit Institute of Art connects to life's experiences and the neighborhood.

Experimental film by Aldo Francia that consists in diverse situations through the 123 steps of the Santa Justina staircase in the Cerro Larraín of Valparaíso.

Five teenage girls gather for a party. Tensions mount as the guests exchange makeovers and hurl accusations. Tears in the bathroom lead to a ghostly kiss. In a circle around the Ouija board, they invoke a spirit. Their faces float in blackness. Five pairs of painted nails caress the planchette as it moves, swirling pale arms behind it. Our host becomes possessed. The characters overlap. Which of these women is not herself? Uzi's Party is a short experimental narrative written, directed and edited by Lyra Hill. All five characters are played by her sister Johanna Hill. Uzi's Party was filmed entirely in-camera on 16mm film, by means of intricately plotted multiple exposures and a cast of thirteen body doubles.

Fragments from a portrait of Jean-Louis Costes - sincere artist, versatile designer, poet of excess -, a man forever atoning his anguish through singing, performance, drawing and writing...

At the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, New York, Dr. Janos Martin helps treat patients with severe mental illness by encouraging them to express themselves through art, whether in paint, sculpture, or collage. In vivid imagery, brilliant close-ups, and delicate conversations, director Jessica Yu presents the intricate, often visionary, work of these nontraditional artists, allowing the patients to describe their approaches and processes in their own, sometimes tangled, words. With patience and calm resilience, Dr. Martin offers feedback and ideas for best methods to the individual artists, who sometimes scream or are in tears, as he helps them displace their frustrations, and demons, onto canvas. Seen as a collective, these works illustrate the fine line between creativity and distress and illuminate the healing power of expression.

A film documenting the soulful art, environments, and voices of self-taught artists on the back roads of the American South.

In the last rehearsal for an upcoming show, three dancers confront emotional and existential challenges as they struggle to create.

Sequence of five shots, each one with a particular color treatment, in which a man carrying a machine gun runs. He moves fast in the beginning but, as the end comes closer, he starts to walk in zigzag. Is he hurt?

An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.

Presents Alex Ross demonstrating how he creates arresting patterns of vivid color and how he uses acrylic paint on a textured media board.

One public housing flat in Moscow stood out above all others: the home of George Costakis, the foremost collector of early 20th century Russian avant-garde art. Its walls were crowded with banned and forgotten works by artists such as Malevich, Tatlin, Kandinsky, Chagall, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and Kliun; public figures such as Edward Kennedy, Stravinsky, and Alfred Barr visited. Barrie Gavin met the collector in 1982 at his home in Athens. Costakis, a Greek born in Russia, passionately shares his story and those of the great Russian avant-garde artists. Their works are his legacy – without him, they would not have survived the political upheavals in Russia.

A documentary about the Estonian artist Kaarel Kurismaa shows the viewer an insight into the world of artists. Kaarel changed his creative direction several times; he explored different artistic styles. Kaarel Kurismaa laid the foundations for Estonian kinetic and sound art. He is a highly versatile artist whose creative energy is divided between painting, sound, installation, monumental art, and film. On the crest of the avant-garde wave of the 1970s, he created several important sound and kinetic objects in Estonian art history.

A discovery of the pictorial art that Ndebele women traditionally practice in South Africa: painting the walls of their houses.

A short film with shots of sculptures by Anneke Walvoort. The materiality of film plays an important role: visible grain, flashes of colour, unexpected camera movements.

Short documentary about artist Keith Haring, detailing his involvement in the New York City graffiti subculture, his opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.

“Convalescing, when you don't have to participate in the world. Time to read, to dream, to look - the blue, the light of the television, the blue, the book, the patterns the light, the blue. Time to appreciate how much that really is.”

Faces pass by in quickly edited, split-screen recordings. A 'structuralist' film in which the film material itself plays an important role. Grain, scratches and flickering give the film texture. The music is by Steve Reich.

Speaking Eyes

This film features some of the most important living Postmodern practitioners, Charles Jencks, Robert A M Stern and Sir Terry Farrell among them, and asks them how and why Postmodernism came about, and what it means to be Postmodern. This film was originally made for the V&A exhibition 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990'.

The Faraway Nearby follows the tragic life of pioneer physicist Joseph Weber, whose pursuit of gravitational waves takes him on a dizzying journey from the height of acclaim to the depths of despair and disdain when he breaks the cardinal rule of science and clings to his ideas though his results can't be duplicated. Physicists, artists, and other creatives explore the emotional side of discovery and question whether the risk is worth the journey.