Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane
Frame still from Allures, by Jordan Belson. 16mm film, 1961, color, sound
(c) Jordan Belson, courtesy Center for Visual Music
Apr 11, 2010
(Jordan Belson, USA, 1959-2005, 16mm/DigiBeta, 70 min)
Program presented in association with Center for Visual Music
Introduced by Cindy Keefer, Director of the Center For Visual Music
Filmmaker and artist Jordan Belson has created some of the most moving, ethereal works of visual music. After seeing the films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren and Hans Richter, he was inspired to make what he called "cinematic paintings." In the late-1950s, Belson collaborated with composer Henry Jacobs on the historic Vortex Concerts, which combined the latest electronic music with moving visual abstractions projected on the dome of Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco. Belson then began making what would become an astonishing body of over 30 abstract films that are, as curator Cindy Keefer has described, “richly woven with cosmological imagery, exploring consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself.” He also produced special effects for the film The Right Stuff (1983), and continues making fine art and films today.
Films Sacred and Profane features rarely seen films including Seance (1959), Allures (1961), Samadhi (1967), a newly-preserved print of Chakra (1972), Light (1973), Music of the Spheres (1977/2002), and Epilogue (2005).
