This is the first comprehensive English-language account of the Polish avant-garde film, from its beginnings in the early decades of the last century to the collapse of communism in 1989. Taking a broad understanding of avant-garde film, this collection includes writings on the pioneering work of the internationally-acclaimed Franciszka and Stefan Themerson; the Polish Futurists' (Jalu Kurek, Anatol Stern) engagement with film; the Thaw and animation (Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk, Andrzej Pawlowski, Zbigniew Rybczynski); documentary (Natalia Brzozowska, Kazimierz Karabasz, Wojciech Wiszniewski), Polish émigré filmmakers (Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Andrzej Zulawski) as well as essays and documentation on the highly influential Film Form Workshop (Józef Robakowski, Ryszard Wasko, Wojciech Bruszewski). Including a mix of historical writings from early film magazines with commissioned essays, this book constitutes an important source on the rich, complex and diverse history of the Polish film avant-garde, which is presented from the perspective of both British (A. L. Rees, Jonathan Owen, Michael O'Pray) and Polish (Marcin Gizycki, Ryszard Kluszczynski, Kamila Kuc) authorities on the subject. This book is thus an indispensable introduction to the theories and practices of critically important avant-garde artists and filmmakers.

Avant-garde film is almost indefinable. It is in a constant state of change and redefinition. In his highly-acclaimed history of experimental film, A.L. Rees tracks the movement of the film avant-garde between the cinema and modern art (with its postmodern coda). But he also reconstitutes the film avant-garde as an independent form of art practice with its own internal logic and aesthetic discourse. In this revised and updated edition, Rees introduces experimental film and video to new readers interested in the wider cinema, as well as offering a guide to enthusiasts of avant-garde film and new media arts. Ranging from Cézanne and Dada, via Cocteau, Brakhage and Le Grice, to the new wave of British film and video artists from the 1990s to the present day, this expansive study situates avant-garde film between the cinema and the gallery, with many links to sonic as well as visual arts. The new edition includes a review of current scholarship in avant-garde film history and includes updated reading and viewing lists. It also features a new introduction and concluding chapter, which assess the rise of video projection in the gallery since the millennium, and describe new work by the latest generation of experimental film-makers. The new edition is richly illustrated with images of the art works discussed.

The first critical survey of the largely unknown avant-garde movements of the former Yugoslavia.

Co-founder and co-editor of October magazine, a veteran of Artforum of the 1960s and early 1970s, Rosalind Krauss has presided over and shared in the major formulation of the theory of postmodernism. In this challenging collection of fifteen essays, most of which originally appeared in October, she explores the ways in which the break in style that produced postmodernism has forced a change in our various understandings of twentieth-century art, beginning with the almost mythic idea of the avant-garde. Krauss uses the analytical tools of semiology, structuralism, and poststructuralism to reveal new meanings in the visual arts and to critique the way other prominent practitioners of art and literary history write about art. In two sections, "Modernist Myths" and "Toward Postmodernism," her essays range from the problem of the grid in painting and the unity of Giacometti's sculpture to the works of Jackson Pollock, Sol Lewitt, and Richard Serra, and observations about major trends in contemporary literary criticism.

This book, the first full critical overview of the film avant-garde, ushers in a new approach—and in the process creates its own subject. While many books have studied particular aspects of the European film avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, Moving Forward, Looking Back provides a much-needed summary of the theory and practice of the movement, while also emphasizing aspects of the period that have been overlooked. Arguing that a European perspective is the only way to understand the transnational movement, the book also pioneers a new approach to the alternative cinema network that sustained the avant-garde, paying particular attention to the emergence of film culture as visible in screening clubs, film festivals, and archives. It will be essential to anyone interested in the influential movement and the film culture it created.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Nov. 18, 2012-Feb. 25, 2013.

Catalan Cinema offers a theoretical reading of the most relevant cinematic productions to emerge from Catalonia in the last twenty years. The essays in this collection examine cinema in relation to the Escola de Barcelona (The Barcelona School), a group of cinema directors that drew inspiration from British pop-art, Free Cinema, and the Nouvelle Vague to create works that defied and challenged the Franco dictatorship. Highlighting the aesthetic, social, and political elements of Catalan cinematography, contributors to this volume explore what young directors have in common with works created by more notable directors such as Joaquim Jordà, Jacinto Esteva, Jordi Grau, and Pere Portabella. Catalan Cinema focuses on the importance of modern production and its connection with the avant-garde and underground cinema from the Barcelona School. Establishing a cinematic genealogy, the volume ultimately questions if Catalan cinema’s own push for self-expression may be interpreted as a connection to Catalonia’s current drive for independence.