American Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson

May 2010 - P. Adams Sitney, professor of visual arts, Princeton University. P. Adams Sitney, distinguished film historian, theorist, and professor of visual arts at Princeton University, delivered a presentation at the National Gallery on December 6, 2009, on the films of several American avant-garde artists as a fulfillment of the promise of a truly American aesthetic, an idea first defined by philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. The short films Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (Marie Menken, 1961); Visions in Meditation #2�Mesa Verde (Stan Brakhage, 1989); Gloria! (Hollis Frampton, 1979); and Gently Down the Stream (Su Friedrich, 1980) were screened in their entirety following the lecture.