Anthology Film Archives
New York

Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.

Opened in 1970 by Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, and Stan Brakhage, Anthology in its original conception was a showcase for the Essential Cinema Repertory collection. An ambitious attempt to define the art of cinema by means of a selection of films which would screen continuously, the Essential Cinema collection was intended to encourage the study of the medium’s masterworks as works of art rather than disposable entertainment, making Anthology the first museum devoted to film as an art form. The project was never completed, but even in its unfinished state it represented an uncompromising critical overview of cinema’s history, and remains a crucial part of Anthology’s exhibition program.

In the decades since its founding, Anthology has grown far beyond its original concept to encompass film and video preservation; the formation of a reference library containing the world’s largest collection of books, periodicals, stills, and other paper materials related to avant-garde cinema; and a remarkably innovative and eclectic film exhibition program. Anthology screens more than 900 programs annually, preserves an average of 25 films per year (with 900 works preserved to date), publishes books and DVDs, and hosts numerous scholars and researchers.

Fueled by the conviction that the index of a culture’s health and vibrancy lies largely in its margins, in those works of art that are created outside the commercial mainstream, Anthology strives to advance the cause and protect the heritage of a kind of cinema that is in particular danger of being lost, overlooked, or ignored.

“Bridges Go Round” by Shirley Clarke (bio)
“Color Rhapsodie” by Mary Ellen Bute / “Bang” by Robert Breer
“Divinations” by Storm de Hirsch / “Reminiscences of a Voyage to Lithuania” by Jonas Mekas
“Artifactual” by Wallace Berman / “Color Rhapsodie” by Mary Ellen Bute
“Zorns Lemma” by Hollis Frampton / “Film Portrait” by Jerome Hill
“The End” by Christopher Maclaine / “Eyewash” by Robert Breer
“Nymphlight” by Joseph Cornell / “Zorns Lemma” by Hollis Frampton
Anthology Film Archives
New York

Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.

Opened in 1970 by Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, and Stan Brakhage, Anthology in its original conception was a showcase for the Essential Cinema Repertory collection. An ambitious attempt to define the art of cinema by means of a selection of films which would screen continuously, the Essential Cinema collection was intended to encourage the study of the medium’s masterworks as works of art rather than disposable entertainment, making Anthology the first museum devoted to film as an art form. The project was never completed, but even in its unfinished state it represented an uncompromising critical overview of cinema’s history, and remains a crucial part of Anthology’s exhibition program.

In the decades since its founding, Anthology has grown far beyond its original concept to encompass film and video preservation; the formation of a reference library containing the world’s largest collection of books, periodicals, stills, and other paper materials related to avant-garde cinema; and a remarkably innovative and eclectic film exhibition program. Anthology screens more than 900 programs annually, preserves an average of 25 films per year (with 900 works preserved to date), publishes books and DVDs, and hosts numerous scholars and researchers.

Fueled by the conviction that the index of a culture’s health and vibrancy lies largely in its margins, in those works of art that are created outside the commercial mainstream, Anthology strives to advance the cause and protect the heritage of a kind of cinema that is in particular danger of being lost, overlooked, or ignored.

“Bridges Go Round” by Shirley Clarke (bio)
“Color Rhapsodie” by Mary Ellen Bute / “Bang” by Robert Breer
“Divinations” by Storm de Hirsch / “Reminiscences of a Voyage to Lithuania” by Jonas Mekas
“Artifactual” by Wallace Berman / “Color Rhapsodie” by Mary Ellen Bute
“Zorns Lemma” by Hollis Frampton / “Film Portrait” by Jerome Hill
“The End” by Christopher Maclaine / “Eyewash” by Robert Breer
“Nymphlight” by Joseph Cornell / “Zorns Lemma” by Hollis Frampton
  • Nonmemory
    Sep 15, 2023 – Jan 14, 2024
    Hauser & Wirth
    Los Angeles, USA
    Through a variety of media and material, the artists in this exhibition use space as the repository for dreams, fantasies, traumas and anxieties, while offering opportunities to re-imagine and recreate reality. The title of the exhibition Nonmemory, takes direct inspiration from Kelley’s use of the term, a way of treating, reordering and representing the complex and unstable relationship between memory, space and identity. (more…)