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‘The Moving Image as Subject and Practice in American Art, 1900-1990’

Film and Television were the most popular artforms of the 20th century in America. Their cultural influence was felt across spheres as diverse as politics, fashion, design and publishing. Notwithstanding the wealth of academic discourse on the cultural, industrial and social history of the moving image in relation to these and other fields there still remains much work to be done on how American artists figured film and television as both distinct subjects and tools for the creation of artworks. This lecture series will present a varied roster of talks that will examine the moving image as both subject and practice in American art. We will explore a diversity of periods, artists and approaches to both film and television, observing the Art History of the moving image from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Session 1: Tom Day and Jo Applin - In Conversation with Jann Haworth

For the first event in this series Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for American Art, Dr Tom Day, and Head of History of Art at The Courtauld, Professor Jo Applin, will be in conversation with pioneering artist Jann Haworth. Haworth is perhaps best known for her role as a pioneer of soft sculpture in the 1960s and her collaboration with British Pop artist Peter Blake in creating one of the most famous album covers of all time: The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Looking beyond these iconic contributions this talk will highlight the formative and ongoing influence of cinema on Haworth’s art practice.

Growing up in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, Haworth was exposed to the fantastical artifice of the film industry from a young age, accompanying her production designer and art director father on set visits to such classic films as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Some like it Hot (1959). Hollywood and the aesthetics of cinema more broadly have had a deep and lasting influence on Haworth’s work, yet this has remained a largely undiscussed and unexamined. Moving from sculptures of the 1960s, including Cowboy (1964) and Mae West Dressing Table (1965) to more recent paintings and assemblage works that deploy celluloid film and mimic projection such as Cinema Paradiso (2007) and Cell (2010), this in conversation event will present the work and insights of one American art’s leading artists concerned with interrogating the mechanics and culture of the moving image.