Influential American experimental cinema: Meshes of the Afternoon

"Meshes of the Afternoon is one of the most influential works in American experimental cinema. A non-narrative work, it has been identified as a key example of the 'trance film,' in which a protagonist appears in a dreamlike state, and where the camera conveys his or her subjective focus. The central figure in Meshes of the Afternoon, played by Deren, is attuned to her unconscious mind and caught in a web of dream events that spill over into reality. Symbolic objects, such as a key and a knife, recur throughout the film; events are open-ended and interrupted. Deren explained that she wanted 'to put on film the feeling which a human being experiences about an incident, rather than to record the incident accurately.'

Made by Deren with her husband, cinematographer Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon established the independent avant-garde movement in film in the United States, which is known as the New American Cinema. It directly inspired early works by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, and other major experimental filmmakers. Beautifully shot by Hammid, a leading documentary filmmaker and cameraman in Europe (where he used the surname Hackenschmied) before he moved to New York, the film makes new and startling use of such standard cinematic devices as montage editing and matte shots. Through her extensive writings, lectures, and films, Deren became the preeminent voice of avant-garde cinema in the 1940s and the early 1950s."

(MoMA, 2004)

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999.

Maya Deren (1943). "Meshes of the Afternoon", 16mm film, black and white, silent, 14 min. Acquired from the Artist.

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Visual simplicity targeting younger customers

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Musee du Quai Branly: showcasing spoils of a colonial past

"Pendentif Hei Tiki - Le tiki est un motif lié à la figuration humaine et la term heib signifie.

'pendant'. Les hei tiki pouvaient être portés par les hommes et les femmes maoris et se tranmettaient au fil des générations.
Début du 19e siècle, jade, fibres végétales, os"
(Musée du quai Branly, Paris)

[Musee du Quai Branly is a new museum in Paris showcasing indigenous artefacts obtained during France's colonial period. The museum attempts to draw connections between its represented cultures through evoking narratives of difference and progress. Despite this somewhat naïve ethnographic stance the museum goes someway towards representing the vastness and diversity of indigenous knowledge.]

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