In the world of 1970s American experimental filmmakers, few artists represent the avant garde wave as wholly as the late Hollis Frampton (although cases could be made for Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, and Stan Brackhage, the other rockstars of Structuralism). Frampton was something of a science whiz as well as a poetry scholar and filmmaker, and late in life he was a pioneer of the nascent “digital art.”

As a fairly major coup, Cinema Project will be screening a selection of Frampton’s Magellan films, which comprise his final major work. Wrote Robert Haller of the Anthology Film Archives: “Magellan, Hollis Frampton’s most ambitious and complex film project, is generally less recognized than his other work, and its invisibility is understandable. The spectator who approaches the unfinished Magellan confronts only fragments; the completed Magellan films comprise only about 8 out of the 36 hours planned. Moreover, Frampton intended Magellan to be a calendrical cycle, with specific films to be shown on each day of the year—properly viewed it would be 369 days long. Metaphorically modeled on Ferdinand Magellan’s exploratory circumnavigation of the world, the project aspired to remarkable aesthetic, historiographic, and conceptual challenges to cinema and perception.”

OK, it’s not the juiciest endorsement in the world, but it’s a pretty rare opportunity to see Frampton’s work. If these were screening in New York, it would likely be at the Museum of Modern Art, rather than the humble New American Art Union, where you can park for free and shimmy in for $6 a night.

Cinema Project present Hollis Frampton: Films from the Magellan Cycle, Nov 26-27, 7:30 pm, $6.
See complete screening schedule after the jump.

Monday November 26th

Noctiluca (Magellan’s Toy's) [1974, 16mm, color, silent, 4 min]
Otherwise Unexplained Fires [1976, 16mm, color, silent, 14 min]
Mindfall Parts I & VI (Birth of Magellan) [1980, 16mm, color, sound, 36 min]

Tuesday November 27th

Noctiluca (Magellan’s Toy's) [1974, 16mm, color, silent, 4 min]
Otherwise Unexplained Fires [1976, 16mm, color, silent, 14 min]
Autumnal Equinox (Solariumagelani) [1974, 16mm, color, silent, 27 min]
Mindfall Parts I & VI (Birth of Magellan) [1980, 16mm, color, sound, 36 min]