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Between the Still and Moving Image

Oct 1, 2008–Jan 4, 2009

Still Moving

October 1–November 2, 2008

Photography is part of the DNA of cinema. This exhibition examines the relationship between the still and moving image by artists and filmmakers whose works use stillness, slowness, light, cinematographic composition, and movement to construct different perceptions of time. Some works engage with place, extending our perception of time into the physical space of the gallery. Others draw our attention to everyday objects rendered almost three-dimensional by the camera's unmoving eye. The still photograph is the explicit subject of several works: collaged, held in front of the camera, or placed on a hot plate and left to burn as the image slowly disappears before our eyes.


William Eggleston on Film

November 5, 2008–January 4, 2009

While William Eggleston is best known for his still photography, particularly his color work of the 1960s and 70s, Eggleston also experimented with video. Eggleston's Stranded in Canton (c. 1973–74) is a home-movie portrait of friends and acquaintances in the South, shot in bars, juke joints, and roadside diners. The Whitney presents a feature-length cut of this video along with three recent documentary films about Eggleston's work and life: William Eggleston in the Real World, by Michael Almereyda, William Eggleston: Photographer, by Reiner Holzemer, and By the Ways: A Journey with William Eggleston, by Vincent Gérard and Cédric Laty.



Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 3 works

Works in the Exhibition

Babette Mangolte, The Camera: Je or La Camera: I, I977
16mm film transferred to video, black-and-white and color, sound; 88 minutes

Babette Mangolte (b. 1941) is a filmmaker and photographer, whose documentary recordings of performances by avant-garde artists and dancers such as Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Robert Morris, Robert Wilson, Simone Forti, and Lucinda Childs are considered classic works of the 1970s. 

Mangolte's film The Camera: Je or La Camera I (1977) examines the power relations inherent in the construction of both still and moving images, folding one medium inside the other. Mangolte constructs a narrative around her taking photographs of a series of models as she instructs them how to pose. We watch as the models, more accustomed to the still camera, become increasingly self-conscious on film, evoking a sense of empathy and anxiety in the viewer.

Andrew Lampert, Varieties of Slow, 2008 
Triple-projection film and performance

Andrew Lampert (b. 1976) is a New York-based filmmaker, whose work often includes aspects of installation art and performance. Varieties of Slow, a three-screen 16mm film installation, constructs a framework of time that operates in direct opposition to conventional "cinema time."

In this installation, each screen shows the same film projected at a different speed–sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-four frames per second. At certain moments during the day, the projectionist makes interventions--changing the lenses, covering them with colored gels, or even moving the projectors’ position within the space--that further alter our perception of the work.

Time and Place

Time and Place features films in which the camera explores the city. Some focus on New York—Times Square, the meatpacking district, and Mulberry Street in the Lower East Side; in one film, the cracks in the sidewalk become the primary subject. A fixed camera records a silent street in Lodz, Poland and a flea market in East Berlin is captured just after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Rudy Burckhardt, What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street, 1956
16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 6 minutes

Rudy Burckhardt, Square Times, 1967
16mm film, color, sound; 6:30 minutes

Ernie Gehr, This Side of Paradise, 1991
16mm film, black-and-white, silent; 14 minutes

Marie Menken, Sidewalks, 1966
16mm film, black-and-white, silent;  6:30 minutes

Christine Noll Brinckman, The West Village Meat Market, 1979
16mm film, color, silent; 11:30 minutes

Peter Hutton, Lodz Symphony, 1991-93
16mm film, black-and-white, silent; 20 minutes

Peter Gidal, Room Film 1973, 1973
16mm film, color, silent; 54 minutes

*The Photograph; The Camera; The Frame; The Film Strip*

In this group of films, the photograph becomes the subject: the frame is revealed as a central element in defining the boundary between stillness and movement and the composition of the film strip--a series of still images printed onto celluloid--is made explicit through re-photography.

Michael Snow, Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film, 1970
16mm film, color, sound; 20 minutes

Morgan Fisher, Production Stills, 1970
16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 11 minutes  

Michael Snow, One Second in Montreal, 1969
16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 26 minutes

Babette Mangolte, The Camera: Je or La Camera: I, I977
16mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 88 minutes

Peter Gidal, Heads, 1969
16mm film, black-and-white, silent; 34 minutes

Hollis Frampton, Nostalgia (Hapax Legomena I), 1973
16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 36 minutes

Nancy Graves, Isy Boukir, 1971
16mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 16 minutes

Bill Brand, Moment, 1972
16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 23:30 minutes

Paul Sharits, Brancusi’s Sculpture Ensemble at Tirgu Jiu, 1977-84
16mm film, color, sound; 21 minutes

Time and Light

Peter Gidal, 4th Wall, 1978
16mm film, color, silent; 38:25 minutes

Larry Gottheim, Barn Rushes, 1971
16mm film, color, silent; 36 minutes

Larry Gottheim, Fog Line, 1970
16mm film, color, silent; 11 minutes


William Eggleston, Stranded in Canton, 1974/2005, 76 minutes

Michael Almereyda, William Eggleston in the Real World, 2005, 84 minutes 

Reiner Holzemer, William Eggleston: Photographer, 2007, 26 minutes

Vincent Gérard and Cédric Laty, By the Ways: A Journey with William Eggleston, 2005, 85 minutes