Morgan Fisher: ( ) 2003

Private View: 2 June, 6:30 - 8:30PM

Exhibition Run: 4 June 2004 - Sunday 20 June 2004

Curated by Emily Pethick

‘The origin of ( ) was my fascination with inserts. Inserts are a crucial kind of shot in the syntax of narrative films. Inserts show newspaper headlines, letters, and similar sorts of significant details that have to be included for the sake of clarity in telling the story. I have long been struck by a quality of inserts that can be called the alien, and as well the alienated. Narrative films depend on inserts (it’s a very rare film that has none), but at the same time they are utterly marginal. Inserts are far from the traffic in faces and bodies that are the heart of narrative films. Inserts have the power of the indispensable, but in the register of bathos.

( ) consists of nothing but inserts, or shots that are close enough to being inserts, so it liberates inserts from their servitude to story. ( ) elevates inserts from the realm of Necessity to the realm of Freedom, and so is a political film. And because the juxtapositions are the result of chance, it is a surrealist film as well.’
Morgan Fisher

Morgan Fisher is based in Los Angeles and has been making films since the late 1960s. His films include Production Stills 1970, The Wilkinson Household Fire Alarm 1973, Cue Rolls 1974, Projection Instructions 1976, and Standard Gauge 1984. ( ) has been screened at the Whitney Biennial 2004, Galerie Daniel Buchholz 2004, the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2004, the 3rd Berlin Biennale 2004, the 41st New York Film Festival 2003.