Our Wexner Center Film/Video curators discuss the upcoming Stanley Kubrick Retrospective in our latest podcast.

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From March until the middle of June this year, I was involved in producing an exhibition on view (through July 20) at the Corcoran Gallery, in Washington, D.C., titled Access to Life. Exhibitions on the scale of Access to Life typically require several years of planning but the urgency underlying it put everyone on the fast track – the eight artists from Magnum Photos’ New York office whose work the exhibition highlights, the individuals from the Global Fund (an NGO based in Geneva) who’d commissioned the project, and the incomparably committed staff on ground at the Corcoran.*

The premise of Access to Life is based on the Global Fund’s campaign of providing free antiretroviral drugs to people with AIDS in developing countries. Hoping to bring the face of the global pandemic to a wider audience, they entered into a partnership last year with Magnum Photos, structured around eight photographers traveling to nine countries to meet the individuals and their families in the process of receiving life-saving treatment. In the fall of last year and in the spring of this year, each photographer made two separate trips, first to meet the people about to begin drug treatment, and then, some months later, to witness how their lives had changed as a result of that. Each on his own schedule, the photographers returned with still images, video footage, audio files, even physical ephemera, and the immediate challenge was how to take stock of all this, and figure out how to render it into exhibition form, and how to meet the daunting exhibition opening deadline of June 14.
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Most people know Chuck Helm as the Wexner Center’s Director of Performing Arts, but he’s also a soccer fanatic. With that in mind, we asked him to send us a few of his UEFA 08 picks for the finals and semi-finals. His answers are below (we also take no responsibility if you bet the family vacation fund on any of these).

Germany vs. Turkey:
Germany….they’re a powerhouse team and Turkey’s injury and foul problems are too much of a issue to overcome.

Russia vs. Spain:
This is tougher call…but I think Spain will prevail. Striker combo of David Villa and Fernando Torres is very impressive.

Final:
Germany…overall better team defensively and their level of experience will be the difference.

So what say you, blog-reader? Agree with Chuck? Disagree? Post your soccer picks below.

Curator Eva Meyer-Hermann discusses the upcoming exhibition, Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms. In this interview she talks about the origin of the project and how it’s different from other Warhol exhibitions.

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Publications Editor Ann Bremner interviews artist Jane Hammond about her current Wexner Center exhibition, Fallen.

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Last night’s first Wex Drive-In of the summer was a rousing success. More than 700 filmgoers came out to enjoy perfect weather, great food, and a classic movie. If you were there, tell us what you thought in the comments section below (don’t be shy, either). And if you missed it, don’t worry: the next Wex Drive-In is July 17 and features a screening of the Orson Welles film noir Lady from Shanghai.

Listen to our Film/Video curators discuss this summer’s outdoor film series in our latest podcast, hosted by our very own Erik Pepple.

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When Spike Lee visited the Wexner Center in February to accept the Wexner Prize, he spoke about his recently completed project, Miracle at St. Anna. The film now has an official website and the trailer has been posted, too:

I’m sure many of you read about the terrible fire at Universal Studios a couple of weeks ago and the irreparable damage to famous sets such as the Back to the Future town square.  The fire also destroyed hundreds if not thousands of film prints and has caused repertory film programmers across the country to scramble to replace lost titles in their calendars.  I don’t think we have all of the facts as to the extent of the damage so I don’t want to speculate or spread inaccurate information.  I’ve talked with a colleague at Universal but at the time they were still trying to document the losses.  

I do know that CAPA had to cancel their screening of Thoroughly Modern Millie this weekend and we had to replace a screening of the pre-Code film White Woman on July 22 with the Warner Bros. title Ladies They Talk About.  Some prints are stored in offsite depots and were spared such as those for The Mummy, Spartacus, and The Birds, all of which are screening at the Wexner Center over the course of the summer.  Many may not know that Universal also owns approximately 750 pre-1950 Paramount titles and prints of many of these films were also destroyed.  

What is most worrisome for venues like the Wexner Center or the Cleveland Cinematheque is that lost prints may not be replaced.  It sounds like no negatives were destroyed in the fire so most prints could be replaced (if negatives still exist).  But will they?  The vast majority of films in the catalog are only booked once or twice every few years.  Will the studio pay the thousands of dollars it will require to replace prints of films with limited commercial appeal?  The cost per print when creating thousands of prints for a new release like The Incredible Hulk is relatively low.  The cost to strike one or two prints, however, is relatively high and considering that most films will take years (if not decades) to recoup the cost it took to strike them one has to wonder how many prints will in fact be replaced.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

To give this even more local resonance, the lone print of Milos Forman’s next-to-impossible to see film Taking Off, which we screened during Mr. Forman’s visit on April 4, was one of the prints destroyed as was the print of Peter Watkins’s next-to-impossible to see cult film Privilege which we screened as part of our Secret Cinema series in March 2007.  Neither film is available on home video. — Dave Filipi, Wexner Center Film/Video Curator

Director of Performing Arts Chuck Helm discusses the philosophy behind the Next@Wex series as well as upcoming summer shows.

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