Reverence: The Films of Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow)

film programme curation
Reverence: The Films of Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow) – curated exhibition and publication, Austrian Film Museum (25/26 January 2005), Rotterdam Film Festival (28 January – 6 February 2005), Tate Modern London (11-12 and 18-19 February 2005), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2 – 27 November 2005) and touring 2005 – 2007.

Owen Land was one of the most original filmmakers of the New American Cinema movement. His works fused an intellectual sense of reason with an irreverent wit that distances him from the supposedly ‘serious’ world of avant-garde film.

The research drew out Land’s anticipation of ‘Structural Film’ a definition which eventually led Land to repudiate film theory. Land then went on to question the role and experience of the viewer in a series of works that challenge ease of interpretation.

The exhibition comprised two programmes of 15/16 mm films. New prints of all the films were screened. The exhibition was funded by Arts Council England and was a collaboration between LUX (London) and Ősterreichisches Filmmuseum (Vienna). The book Two Films by Owen Land was edited by Webber and was published by LUX and distributed by Wallflower Press and Columbia University Press. It includes Webber’s 2004 interview with Land, (redacted by Land), a filmography and the screenplay for ‘Wide Angle Saxon’ 1975. (ISBN 0954856910).

Following its opening, the touring exhibition was screened at more than 30 international venues (see http://lux.org.uk/touring/reverence.htm). The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York presented two films continuously as a month long gallery exhibition. At this venue Webber participated in a panel discussion with Adams Sitney (Princeton University) and Chrissie Iles (curator at the Whitney). The exhibition also travelled to venues including Centre Georges Pompidou and the Australian Centre for Moving Image in Melbourne.