Film & Media Studies Helene Keyssar Distinguished Lecture: "Scaling Down" with Marc Siegel

Marc Siegel is professor of film studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. His research and publications focus on issues in queer studies and experimental film. He is co-editor of Film Culture 80: The Legend of Barbara Rubin (2018) and Jack Smith: Beyond the Rented World (2014), a special issue of Criticism. His book A Gossip of Images is forthcoming from Duke University Press. He has also curated numerous film series for festivals, museums and galleries, including the Berlinale, Tate Modern (London), CCCB (Barcelona), Bunkier Sztuki (Cracow) and the Goethe Institute (Kolkata). His curatorial projects include the festivals Camp/Anti-Camp (2012) and LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! (2009). He is on the advisory board of the Forum Expanded section of the Berlinale and one of the co-founders of the Berlin-based artists' collective CHEAP.

Siegel's talk will engage with current strategies for exhibiting moving images. He will contrast the sometimes spectacular and decorative use of avant-garde films in contemporary exhibitions with select innovative approaches to the presentation of painting and photography. With reference to his own curatorial work on a recent Berlin exhibition, Edit Film Culture! (2018), Siegel will argue for the aesthetic significance of scale and context.