[MGSA-L] "Temenos, " a two-day screening of films by Gregory Markopoulos, at U-Michigan
Artemis S Leontis 1
aleontis at umich.edu
Fri Jan 27 08:45:46 PST 2012
"Temenos,"
a two day program of films by Gregory J. Markopoulos and Robert Beavers
will be screened at Angell Auditorium A
February 4th and 5th at 3:00pm.
Following the screening of Robert Beavers films on Sunday the 5th,
will be a panel discussion with contributions from Robert Beavers,
Stashu Kybartas, James Macgillivray and Julie Murray.
The programs are in honor of the 2012 Temenos program this summer. The
premiere of the sixth, seventh, and eighth orders of Gregory J.
Markopoulos?s final and culminating film, ENIAIOS, will take place at
the Temenos site near Lyssaraia in Arcadia from June 29 through July
1, 2012. Markopoulos and Beavers films have been shown in a number of
venues including the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Film Festival,
The Whitney Museum, The Tate Gallery, The Harvard Film Archive, The
Louvre Museum, The Pacific Film Archive and the Osterreichisches
Filmmuseum.
Gregory Markopolos and Robert Beavers
Two major figures of the American Avant Garde cinema from the 1950s to
the present are Gregory Markopoulos (originally from Toledo) and
Robert Beavers (from Brookline, Massachusetts). Having met in 1966 in
New York, they soon moved to Europe, splitting their time between
Greece, Italy and Switzerland. Markopoulos, the older of the two was
already a major figure in American cinema; Beavers, only 17 at the
time, began in the role of the apprentice, but was soon making major
works of his own. Markopoulos? films are characterized by their
classical themes, attention to color and exquisite craft. For his
part, Beavers has pioneered certain aspects of camera manipulation and
movement together with an intricate and masterful use of sound. Both
filmmakers are intimately engaged in architecture both as a historic
subject and a site for the filmic manipulation of space.
Towards the end of the 1970s, Markopoulos conceived of a space which
he would later call the Temenos, for the projection of both of their
films. Temenos, a Greek word meaning ?a piece of land set apart? was
initially inspired by Markopoulos? trip to Greece in the 1950s,
particularly to the amphitheater and the temple of Asclepius at
Epidaurus. They eventually settled on a site near Markopoulos?
father?s native town of Lyssarea in the Pelopenese. Viewers of films
at the Temenos gather in the town for four days in a kind of cinematic
pilgrimage; at the end of each day they hike up to a screen and
projector in the middle of an isolated field for five hours of
challenging films under the night sky.
For both of the artists, the Temenos proved to be vital as both a
conceptual and literal site for the projection of their work. For
Markopoulos in particular, the advent of the Temenos was indivisible
with the creation of his immense final film, Eniaios. An utterly
singular work in the history of film, Eniaios is comprised of 22 film
cycles, each cycle made up of several films, the total being over one
hundred films and approximately 80 hours in length. After Markopoulos?
death in 1992, Beavers is now responsible both for the continuation of
the Temenos screenings and also for the restoration and printing of
the Eniaios film.
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