Meet the Filmmaker: Sumner Glimcher
“Art Films”
Date: Thursday, June 7, 2012
Location: NY NATAS, 1375 Broadway (between 37thand 38thStreets), Suite 2103
Reception: 6:00-6:30 PM ~ Program: 6:30-8:00 PM
*Free to NY NATAS Members!
$15 for those without current NY NATAS membership.
In the fall of 1965, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of all the major works of Alberto Giacometti. Sumner Jules Glimcher, then the Manager of the Center for Mass Communication at Columbia University was asked to create a documentary of the exhibition. After recording all of the sculptor’s works, Glimcher unearthed a treasure trove of what the sculptor had written about his work. These musings were translated from French into English and were edited into what was essentially an artistic map of the sculptor’s work and then the images were edited to illustrate the words. After commissioning an original score, the final 12 minute film, “Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966” was completed and was honored at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Many years later, when the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC honored Giacometti, this film was played continuously for the duration of the exhibit.
In 1949, when the Communist Party in the People’s Republic of China defeated the Guo min tang and evicted Generalissimo Chiang kai shek from the mainland, Chiang took all the art of China that was movable, i.e. everything but the architecture such as the Forbidden Palace, with him to Taiwan. He claimed that he was preserving it from the Communist Barbarians, while Mao tse tung said he stole it from the people of China. Be that as it may, when Chiang settled in Taiwan, he constructed a very large new museum called the “National Palace Museum” in Taipei and there ensconced all the art he had brought to the island. In 1973 Glimcher had been commissioned to create a documentary on Taiwan, and while there was given permission as the first filmmaker to create a film shot at the Museum. “Masterpieces of Chinese Art,” this half-hour film, portrays the art from the very early Shang Dynasty bronzes through the Tang, Ming and other seminal periods of Chinese art including Jade, Porcelain, Ivory, Lacquer and important scrolls to the present.
About the Filmmaker:
Sumner Jules Glimcher is a documentary filmmaker and Professor Emeritus from NYU. In earlier years he also taught at Columbia University and Harvard, his alma mater. He has been a media consultant to the President of Harvard, the United Nations and for more than twenty years, the Consulate General of Japan. He has been a lecturer on eleven luxury cruise liners and has led groups of filmmakers and photographers to multiple trips to China and Japan. He has just completed his EBOOK, titled “A Filmmaker’s Journal,” now available on IPADS from the APPLE ITUNES and EBOOK Store.
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED DUE TO BUILDING SECURITY. ALL NAMES MUST BE ON GUEST LIST. Please RSVP via email info@nyemmys.org to reserve a seat.Please write “Art Films” in the subject line. Space is limited.
Producer & Moderated by Sumner Jules Glimcher.
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