Event Details
Date & Time:
Thu October 16, 2014 - Thu October 30, 2014
Location:
The Block Museum of Art
40 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Audience:
Open to the public
Details:
This fall the Block Museum’s main gallery will showcase the work of Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu, whose work explores the intersections of gender, the environment, colonialism, the black female body, and science fiction, to name a few. To coincide with the exhibition Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey, Block Cinema will screen two 1970s films that touch upon some of these themes including the Afrofuturist classic, Space is the Place, starring the inimitable Sun Ra, and Fantastic Planet, an animated cult film set in a terrifying future world. Fantastic Planet inspired Mutu’s first animated video piece, The End of eating Everything, which features musician Santigold.
Space is the Place
Thursday, October 16, 2014 7:00 PM FREE
(John Coney, 1974, US, 35mm, 85 min.)
The inimitable jazz musician and far out futurist Sun Ra plays himself in this sci-fi feature in which he travels through space and time to save the black race while being pursued by FBI agents who want to assassinate him. An avant-garde jazz score by Sun Ra himself (a favorite figure of featured artist, Wangechi Mutu) rounds out this Afrofuturist classic. 2014 marks not only Sun Ra’s centennial, but also the film’s 40th anniversary.
Fantastic Planet
Thursday, October 30, 2014 7:00 PM FREE
(René Laloux, 1973, France/Czechoslovakia, 35mm, 72 min.)
An animated cult classic, Fantastic Planet is set in a terrifying future world in which Oms (diminutive human-like beings) are kept as pets or exterminated by the Traggs (giant blue creatures) until one Om escapes and struggles to unite his species before they are eradicated. Though dark in subject matter, Fantastic Planet is as strange, beautiful, and richly constructed as anything you’ve seen before. The film inspired artist Wangechi Mutu’s video, The End of eating Everything (on view in the Alsdorf Gallery).
Please note: Due to its violent and sexual content this film may be unsuitable for younger audiences.
Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu