Michael Snow
Michael Snow was considered one of Canada's most important artists, and one of the world's leading experimental filmmakers. His wide-ranging and multidisciplinary oeuvre explored the possibilities inherent in different mediums and genres, and encompassed film and video, painting, sculpture, photography, writing, and music. Snow's practice comprised a thorough investigation into the nature of perception. While Snow early established himself as a successful painter and musician in his native Toronto, it was his 1962 move to New York City that marked the beginning of his rise to international prominence. He entered into a long-lasting and fruitful dialogue with downtown Manhattan's artistic avant garde, exchanging ideas with figures such as Yvonne Rainer, Philip Glass, Sol LeWitt, and Richard Foreman, and developing of some of his most ambitious and influential works to date. His 1964 film New York Eye and Ear Control documents his growing involvement with the burgeoning free jazz movement, and the soundtrack boasts a lineup that includes Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, and Sonny Murray. Snow would continue to pursue improvised music, both on his own and in ensembles such as Toronto's CCMC. The generation and reception of sound in the broader sense emerged as one of his main concerns, reflected in performance and tape works that share qualities with contemporaneous experiments by composers like Steve Reich. At the same time, Snow made alliances within the underground film scene ...
One Second in Montreal (1969)
A film built solely of durations. Silent succession of black and white photographs reflecting nearly empty streets from the city of Montreal. According to Michael Snow, the project began with a request from the Montreal's city council in order to place some ... (more)
A film built solely of durations. Silent succession of black and white photographs reflecting nearly empty streets from the city of Montreal. According to Michael Snow, the project began with a request from the Montreal's city council in order to place some ... (more)
A Casing Shelved (1970)
Michael Snow's 1970 film A Casing Shelved combines a projection of a 35mm slide showing a bookcase in Snow's studio with a tape-recorded narration by the artist that discusses various objects within the image. Not only addressing viewers directly, Snow's narration ... (more)
Michael Snow's 1970 film A Casing Shelved combines a projection of a 35mm slide showing a bookcase in Snow's studio with a tape-recorded narration by the artist that discusses various objects within the image. Not only addressing viewers directly, Snow's narration ... (more)
Two Sides to Every Story (1974)
Two 16mm films are projected in a loop on a thin painted aluminum screen hanging in the middle of a room. We can hear the projectors at each end of the room, which project images on the central screen. We can see the same scene on each side of the screen: a woman, ... (more)
Two 16mm films are projected in a loop on a thin painted aluminum screen hanging in the middle of a room. We can hear the projectors at each end of the room, which project images on the central screen. We can see the same scene on each side of the screen: a woman, ... (more)
‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen (1974)
Described (rather cheekily) by director Michael Snow as a musical comedy, this deft probing of sound/image relationships is one of his wittiest, most entertaining and philosophically stimulating films. In his words, the film “derives its form and the nature of its ... (more)
Described (rather cheekily) by director Michael Snow as a musical comedy, this deft probing of sound/image relationships is one of his wittiest, most entertaining and philosophically stimulating films. In his words, the film “derives its form and the nature of its ... (more)
I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1987)
This is an interesting little documentary about the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, which was apparently one of the global hotbeds of experimental/avant garde art- particularly video art- back in the 70's & 80's. MacGillvary interviews a number of the ... (more)
This is an interesting little documentary about the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, which was apparently one of the global hotbeds of experimental/avant garde art- particularly video art- back in the 70's & 80's. MacGillvary interviews a number of the ... (more)
Funnel Piano (1983)
A rare film shot in Super 8 by Michael Snow in 1984 that is almost unseen: an exercise in improvisation in which Snow plays the piano with one hand while filming with the other. (more)
A rare film shot in Super 8 by Michael Snow in 1984 that is almost unseen: an exercise in improvisation in which Snow plays the piano with one hand while filming with the other. (more)
The Stone Age (1970)
"The question is, it is either going to be a stoned age or a new Stone Age" - Louis Brigante (more)
"The question is, it is either going to be a stoned age or a new Stone Age" - Louis Brigante (more)
Cinématon V (1979)
Reel 5 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series. (more)
Reel 5 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series. (more)
Little Walk (1964)
Little Walk (1964) is Michael Snow’s first gallery film installation. It arrives as a diplomatic envoy from New York’s art and film worlds of the sixties – an alternative cinema informed by Minimalism and Happenings, materializations of art as experience projected ... (more)
Little Walk (1964) is Michael Snow’s first gallery film installation. It arrives as a diplomatic envoy from New York’s art and film worlds of the sixties – an alternative cinema informed by Minimalism and Happenings, materializations of art as experience projected ... (more)
A Lecture (2012)
This performance piece by filmmaker Hollis Frampton, recorded in 1968 in New York City, features the voice of artist Michael Snow. Frampton would place a tape deck at the front of a room, press play, and walk to the back to run a 16mm projector. Presented here is ... (more)
This performance piece by filmmaker Hollis Frampton, recorded in 1968 in New York City, features the voice of artist Michael Snow. Frampton would place a tape deck at the front of a room, press play, and walk to the back to run a 16mm projector. Presented here is ... (more)
Seminar (1969)
An unreleased diary film shot during the Fairleigh-Dickinson Artist Seminar simultaneous to the production of Back and Forth by Michael Snow. (more)
An unreleased diary film shot during the Fairleigh-Dickinson Artist Seminar simultaneous to the production of Back and Forth by Michael Snow. (more)
Preludes (2000)
Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a ... (more)
Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a ... (more)
L’œil omnidirectionnel de Michael Snow (1978)
This is the sound recording of the interview that Michael Snow, filmmaker, sculptor, photographer and visual artist, gave to Gérard Courant for the magazine Art press, published in February 1979, in its number 25. A great connoisseur of the Canadian artist's work ... (more)
This is the sound recording of the interview that Michael Snow, filmmaker, sculptor, photographer and visual artist, gave to Gérard Courant for the magazine Art press, published in February 1979, in its number 25. A great connoisseur of the Canadian artist's work ... (more)