Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet: Three Works
Three distinct cinematic works by Straub and Huillet presented using three distinct exhibition formats.
Curated by James Voorhies with Miguel Abreu
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
August 4–September 24, 2016
Made possible with funding and staff of Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts with additional support by Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; realized within my responsibilities as Director and Curator of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
The exhibition featured a presentation of Straub and Huillet’s Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice (1977), a staging of Mallarmé’s poem A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance (1897). The presentation included the 10-minute film screened on a monitor accompanied by 20 silver-halide color prints mounted on board, and a 2014 copy of Mallarmé’s poem, published by Éditions Gallimard in 1914. The second work: a large-scale silver-halide color prints mounted on aluminum, images from the film Cézanne: Conversation with Joachim Gasquet (1990).
The third: a facsimile of the seventeen-page script for the film A Visit to the Louvre (2004). The typed pages, heavily annotated and edited by Huillet using yellow, green, blue, and red markers shows the filmmakers’ creative working process, majestically transforming typed pages into a series of abstract drawings.
Jean-Marie Straub (b. 1933) and Danièle Huillet (1959–2006) were partners working intimately from the early 1960s until Huillet’s death, continually pursuing a writing and filmic practice dedicated to interpreting the art, literature, and institutions of Western culture.
Straub and Huillet’s publication Writings (2016), edited by Sally Shafto and published by Sequence Press, accompanied the exhibition.
The exhibition was realized in connection with the film series Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet at the Harvard Film Archive from September 15 to October 15, 2016, originally organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art, New York. The United States tour of the films was organized by Thomas Beard.
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