The American Experiment: The Complete Works of Ed Owens
February 28, 2020 7:30pm – 8:30pm
Films presented and introduced by Melissa Lyde
Edward Owens was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1949. He began practicing art in 1961 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Initially focused on painting and drawings, Owens created his first work on 8mm film in 1965. He was awarded a scholarship to study w/ experimentalist filmmaker, Gregory Markopoulos, at the University of Chicago. Realizing Owens’s natural talent, Markopoulos encouraged Owens to leave school and move to New York. In New York, Owens met Charles Boultenhouse, a brief lover and supporter of his work..Despite suffering from depression, Owens managed to complete four works on film that have remained masterpieces today. His career was tragically cut short by personal issues that nearly cost him his life, and after returning to Chicago, his visionary work went largely overlooked.
Using baroque lighting techniques, he delicately captures an evening of laughs between his mother, Mildred Owens, and her friend, Nettie Thomas, coupling their relaxed state with pop music in Remembrance: a Portrait Study; peers into the vacantness of love in Tomorrow’s Promise; blurs fantasy and reality in Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts; and displays grim determination in his first film, Autre fois J’ai Aime Une Femme (Once I loved a Woman).
– Melissa Lyde
Tickets: $12
Location
Maysles Documentary Center
343 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York NY 10027 US