San Francisco, CA 94133
http://www.sfai.edu
800 345 7324
SFAI Proudly Welcomes Lynn Hershman Leeson as New Head of Its Film Department
Set to assume the role of chair in the SFAI Film Department in the fall of 2007, Lynn Hershman Leeson is currently on the verge of meeting a separate but related appointment: the debut of her latest film, Strange Culture, at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival on 19 January.
Described as “the most influential woman working in new media” (when receiving the Siemens Medienkunstpreis) and internationally recognized as a pioneering figure effecting the advancement and innovation of contemporary visual culture, Hershman Leeson is no stranger to wearing a variety of hats: photographer, videographer, performance artist, installation artist, interactive and net-based media artist, filmmaker, teacher, and now chair. Her seminal work in the domains of performance art, new media, and feminist art has garnered her a number of awards and accolades, among them a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the esteemed “Golden Nica,” the highest prize of the Prix Ars Electronica (known as the Oscar of cyberspace).
Partly shot on the historic SFAI campus, Strange Culture inventively stages the surreal set of events that the internationally acclaimed artist and professor Steven Kurtz was compelled to undergo when his wife, Hope, unexpectedly died of heart failure in her sleep. Effectively forced by a US-government gag order (rather than motivated, at least in the first instance, by reasons internal to her art) to circumvent realistic representation, Hershman Leeson fabricates a montage narrative that comprises dramatic reenactments (by such indie stalwarts as Tilda Swinton and Peter Coyote), news sequences, animation, testimonials, and footage of Kurtz himself. The result is a radiant but eerie account of one artist’s—make that two artists’—clash with the prevailing post-9/11 “state of exception.”
Like Hershman Leeson herself, the SFAI Film Department has been, from very early on, a groundbreaking force in film studies and filmmaking. Teaching the first class on the subject in 1947, Sydney Peterson inaugurated what would become an abiding and prestigious tradition. Indeed, that same year Jordan Belson debuted his first abstract film, Transmutations, at the second “Art in Cinema” program. Ever since, the Film Department at SFAI has produced an array of notable figures: Peter Streitman (cinematographer) and Christopher Seguine (editor) for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle and Drawing Restraint series; Lance Acord (cinematographer) for Adaptation, Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette; Kathryn Bigelow (director) for The Weight of Water and K-19: The Widowmaker; Scott Kramer (producer) for The Limey and Full Frontal; Menno Meyjes (writer) for The Color Purple and Max (which he directed as well); and Mike Chambers (visual effects producer) for Volcano and The Day after Tomorrow.
“Having taught in several departments at SFAI over the years, including photography, new genres, and film, I look forward to participating in its provocative future, at this particularly exciting moment of its history.”
—Lynn Hershman Leeson
San Francisco Art Institute
Founded in 1871, San Francisco Art Institute is one of the US’s oldest and most prestigious schools of higher education in contemporary art. SFAI’s academic and public programs further the relationship between the practices and theories of contemporary art. SFAI’s School of Studio Practice is centered on the development of the artist’s vision through studio-based experiments and the understanding that the artist is an essential part of society. The School of Interdisciplinary Studies is based on the premise that critical thinking and writing—informed by an in-depth understanding of theory and practice—are essential for engaging global society.
SFAI’s Summer Institute offers a low-residency MFA degree program, the City Studio Pre-College and Teacher Professional Development programs, as well as studio and interdisciplinary courses for credit and noncredit. Courses range from one to eight weeks, and include a full range of studio disciplines, art writing, English as a second language, art history, study/travel, and more.
For more information about these and other programs offered at SFAI, as well as information about how to apply, please see http://www.sfai.edu or call 800 345 SFAI.