MUSE Film and TV

Four walls of twelve heads, blinking, fidgeting, shifting their weight, staring you down. Andy Warhol’s “Motion Pictures” at MoMA are a humbling display. In the mid-1960s Warhol put a black and white, 16 millimeter film camera in front of celebrities, friends, artists, and other Factory guests, blasted them with bright white light and let the camera roll. He slowed the film down from 24 to 16 frames per second for a slight slow motion, creating a dreamy quality that along with the large scale of these film portraits, further enhance the untouchability of it all.

The only downside of the exhibition is the effect of digitizing the films. Pixels are quite noticeable especially when compared to the one portrait (which changes on a daily rotation) that remains projected in its original 16 millimeter format.

Visible in the room next door is a theater rotating three longer films: “Sleep,” “Kiss,” and “Empire.” The first is a single shot of poet and friend of Warhol, John Giorno, sleeping for five hours and twenty minutes. The second is a couple kissing for fifty-four minutes. And the last is eight hours of the Empire State Building, from sundown to darkness with lights twinkling until they all go out. The remainder of the film is virtually a black frame. Like the twelve portraits, they are silent and black and white. Watch at your own risk.

If you’re lucky and enter the exhibit when it’s not crowded, stand in the center. In a large, dark room, the effect of the flickering black and white glow surrounding you is stunning. If you’re not a stickler for consuming art as it was meant to be consumed, bring an iPod. You will be forced into a contemplative state and start to mirror the Warhol’s superstars themselves; blinking, fidgeting, shifting your weight, staring back at them.

“Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures” is on at MoMA through March 21

www.moma.org

Review by Christiana Cefalu