PRESENTATION: Jordan Belson-Landscapes
Jordan Belson is a seminal figure in twentieth-century avant-garde cinema. Known for his highly inventive approach to abstraction as well as his innovative use of non-traditional media, Belson always insisted on his work’s connection to the observable world, declaring: “I do everything I can to make everything connect up, to construct real events in an unreal world”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Matthew Marks Gallery Archive
The exhibition “Jordan Belson: Landscapes” features a series of collages made between 1970 and 1973. Exhibited here for the first time, Jordan Belson’s landscape collages, created from torn paper painted in various colors, were inspired in part by the 1000-year-old Japanese art of chigiri-e, which uses torn paper to create images of landscapes and flowers. Belson’s works range from depictions of interior, mental visions to the furthest reaches of the observable universe, evoking the hills that surround the San Francisco Bay or capturing a moon rising over an imagined world. “I’m trying to make pictures,” he said, “that focus and teach you about a knowledge that is beyond words.” Known for his highly inventive approach to abstraction as well as his innovative use of non-traditional media, Belson always insisted on his work’s connection to the observable world, declaring: “I do everything I can to make everything connect up, to construct real events in an unreal world”. On 16/4/2022 Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, New York) will present a screening of Belson’s films, including 16mm prints of “Cosmos” (1970), “Meditation” (1971), and “Chakra” (1972), along with recently restored audio tape compositions by Belson.
Jordan Belson (1926–2011), a seminal figure in twentieth-century avant-garde cinema, studied painting and in 1949 his work was included in two exhibitions at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (now Guggenheim Museum). In the late 1940s he began making films, settling in San Francisco, where he lived for the remainder of his life. In the early 1950s Belson started experimenting with hallucinogens and devoted himself to meditation and a rigorous yoga discipline in an effort to expand his consciousness, resulting in films that were tightly controlled yet often ecstatic transmissions of a liberated mind’s eye. Although Belson never exhibited his paintings again after 1950, the medium remained central to his art, and reflected and informed the films for which he later became renowned. The highly inventive approach to abstraction in his paintings anticipated the work of better-known artists by more than a decade. Belson did not, in fact, consider his work abstract but rather a faithful record of altered psychic states.
Photo: Jordan Belson, Untitled, c. 1970, Paper collage and mixed media mounted on board, 9 × 12 inches; 23 × 31 cm, ©Jordan Belson, Courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
Info: Matthew Marks Gallery, 526 West 22nd Street, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 11/3-23/4/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://matthewmarks.com
