Features

Gorfinkel Lecture: Sleeping in the Movie Theater

Tuesday, November 14 2023 3:30 pm

Curtain 939

Image of Wanda Entering a Movie Theater

Sleeping in the Movie Theater (After Wanda Goronski)

Navigating recent interest in nocturnal imaginaries and the valence of sleep for understanding cinematic spectatorship, this talk takes up the sleeping spectator as it figures in Barbara Loden’s landmark independent film Wanda (1970) to examine the function of night, weariness, precarity and itinerancy in the film, exploring some tensions that inhere in analyses of sleep as a domain of repose or abandon. Following an essayistic and meandering logic that mimes the perambulations of the titular Wanda Goronski herself, this talk enacts a series of experiments with forms of description, the unraveling of archival aporias drawn from the film’s shooting script and other historical anecdotes, and larger theorisations of cinema as medium of exhaustion. The talk emerges as one product of several years of archival research on Barbara Loden, sketching out a path from one research project (a monograph on Loden’s film Wanda) to another about Barbara Loden as a feminist film historical subject and site of thorny questions about authorship, biography, the unfinished, and feminist film writing.

Bio

Elena Gorfinkel is Reader in Film Studies at King’s College London. Prior to King’s she was Associate Professor of Art History & Film Studies at UW-Milwaukee. Her research interests concern independent, adult, & experimental cinemas and women’s film practices. She is the author of Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s (Minnesota, 2017), and co-editor of Taking Place: Location & the Moving Image (Minnesota, 2011), and Global Cinema Networks (Rutgers, 2018). Forthcoming in 2024 are two books, Wanda (BFI Film Classics, Bloomsbury), and The Prop, with John David Rhodes (Fordham/ Cutaways series). She is at work on two projects, a book on “cinemas of exhaustion” which was awarded an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and a history of Barbara Loden’s creative life and feminist legacies. She is a member of the London Film Critics Circle and her criticism appears in Criterion, Sight & Sound, Artforum, among other venues. More info at: elenagorfinkel.com

More info: https://uwm.edu/c21/event/gorfinkel-lecture-sleeping-in-the-movie-theater/

Flyer:

Flyer for Elena Gorfinkel Lecture

UWM Art Collection Halloween Video

Because it’s the Halloween season! Created by Professor Sarah Schaefer!

This is Not the Garrus-Ware You’re Looking For: The Curious Case of a 13th Century Pitcher in UWM Art Collection

Pitcher. Iran (Garrus), 13th century CE. Ceramic with Glaze. Credit Line: Gift of Mr. And Mrs. Carl Moebius. UWM Art Collection, 1985.086

Figure 1. Pitcher. Iran (Garrus), 13th century CE. Ceramic with Glaze. Credit Line: Gift of Mr. And Mrs. Carl Moebius. UWM Art Collection, 1985.086. David Symanzik-Stock Art Expose Spring 2023 Introduction The provenance of objects in museum collections is always… Read More

Art Exposé Gallery Talks

Art Expose frame
The Art Exposé are 15-minute presentations in which Gallery Staff, Faculty, or Gallery Interns discuss a mystery art object in the gallery collection. This is a wonderful opportunity to see the results of object-based learning and support our gallery team. Plus, you may see something new and exciting you never knew we had!
Each talk will be at 1pm in the Mathis Art Gallery.

Presentations this semester:

  • September 12 – David Pacifico, UWM Art Collection and Mathis Art Gallery Director
  • October 10 – Leigh Mahlik, UWM Art Collection and Mathis Art Gallery Academic Curator
  • November 14 – Carly Neil, Mathis Gallery Graduate Student Curatorial Intern will present on Tuesday at 1pm
  • December 11 – Daniel KennedyMathis Gallery Graduate Student Curatorial Intern will present on Monday at 1pm

Art Works: Recent Donations to the UWM Art Collection

Art Works Advertisement

September 18, 2023 through February 8, 2024

Opening Reception: September 14, 2023, 5-7pm
UWM Gallery Night Thursday, September 21st from 4-7pm

Art Works places the spotlight on curation and research practices at the UWM Art Collection and Emile H. Mathis Art Gallery. Drawing from recent donations and featuring objects of research attention, the exhibition emphasizes the gallery’s mission at work.

The UWM Art Collection and Emile H. Mathis Art Gallery are distinct in their accessibility to the public and their support of graduate and undergraduate training. Historically, art museums and collections have been shaped by relatively few people, and have quietly carried on collecting, researching, and displaying works with limited public input. Recently, art institutions and museum scholars have begun to lift the curtain. Art Works continues this new tradition of transparency.

The exhibit features pieces by well-known artists such as Dale Chihuly, Andy Warhol, and Alexander Calder. Lesser-known – but no less significant – artists including Max Arthur Cohn, Karen Fitzgerald, and Carlos Hermosilla Alvarez are also presented. Art Works highlights the key players that make the Mathis Art Gallery a rich resource for all.

Art Works: Recent Donations to the UWM Art Collection was curated by Academic Curator Leigh M.W. Mahlik and features research by former undergraduate and graduate student gallery interns, former gallery teaching assistants, faculty, and gallery staff.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Friends of Art History, the Max Arthur Cohn Preservation Fund, the Emile H. Mathis Preservation Fund, the Department of Art History, and the College of Letters and Sciences.

Image:

Detail of Karen Fitzgerald, Lambent, 2005, oil on canvas, Gift of Karen Fitzgerald and Kohler Foundation, Inc., UWMAC 2021.006.03

The Emile H. Mathis Art Gallery
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
Mitchell Hall 170
3203 N. Downer Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53211

Museum Hours

Mon – Thurs: 10 AM – 4 PM
Fri: CLOSED *

* Visits by appointment only

https://uwm.edu/arthistory/gallery/

Professor Wang post on C21 Blog: The Use of Dung in Northern Tibetan Culture–From Grassland to Grassland

“Dung is vital for survival in the grassland. The most popular material for fuel is yak-dung, mostly for strong, quick cooking. Just like the Tibetan language has fine-grained terminology for the different stages of maturity of these animals, so as… Read More

Bamana “Mudcloth”: UWM Art Collection Research

bogolanfini Object 2009.002.24

Object ID: 2009.002.24 Object Name: Textile Artist/Maker: Unrecorded Bamana artist Culture: Bamana People, Mali Title: Bamana “Mudcloth” Medium: Woven textiles and resist-dye Dimension Details: H-67 W-45 inches On Campus Collection: UWM Art Collection Gift of Mark and Mary Jo Wentzel… Read More

Ethiopian String Instrument: UWM Art Collection Research

krar

Research on an object from the UWM Art Collection at the the Emile H. Mathis gallery by Mirel Crumb. I had the wonderful opportunity to be able to learn more about an object in the UWM Art Collection at the… Read More

New blog post from Tanya Tiffany, “The Infanta Ana and the Infant Christ”

Read Professor Tiffany’s latest post on the website, AGENART, https://agenart.org/blog/.    

Matthew Rarey to publish book “Insignificant Things”

In Insignificant Things Matthew Francis Rarey traces the history of the African-associated amulets that enslaved and other marginalized people carried as tools of survival in the Black Atlantic world from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Often considered visually benign by white… Read More