Film Comment has published the first review of Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966–2016 in its July/August 2016 issue. Jordan Cronk’s enthusiastic response to the book concludes that Gidal’s prose is “as dense, complex, and harmonically composed as any the field has produced.”

Referencing the first publication from The Visible Press, the review draws parallels with Gregory Markopoulos, whose dictum “Film as Film” was also, coincidentally, used by Gidal in his own writing.

Gidal responds:-

thanks for the lovely review by jordan cronk, just a note about fim as film, which does not reference the work or writings of gregory markopoulos … when writing my piece “film as film” (not reprinted in my flare out: aesthetics 1966-2016)  around 1972 for the artists film issue of Art and Artists, i had thought the phrase was of my invention, due to ignorance of the many others who used that phrase from the 1920s onwards … in any case, gregory m. once phoned me in london in the late 1970s in a fury about the use of the term for an exhibition at the hayward gallery and also at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, organized by Wilhelm and Birgit Hein and others, in any case i said gregory before you blame only them i have to tell you i wrote a piece called that in the early 70s not aware of your use of the term and he said oh that’s ok peter, but this exhibition is an outrage etc etc … so somehow i was exempted. but this note just to say it doesnt reference anything but my own ideas (which of course don’t exist in a vacuum). and to thank film comment for the kind review. the visible press will no doubt echo beckett’s “7 copies sold, 3 at trade discount”.

Gidal’s text “Film as Film”, which originally appeared in the December 1972 issue of Art and Artists, will be reprinted in “Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative 1966-76”, due to be published by LUX in October 2016.

Peter Gidal will be a special guest of this year’s L’age d’or Festival. Three programmes of Gidal’s films will be shown from 7-10 October 2016 at the Brussels Cinematek. Peter Gidal will be present for the first two screenings, and Mark Webber will attend all three.

The festival’s second retrospective is devoted to Lebanese artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreig. In addition to the competition programme, the festival also includes a special focus on US West Coast filmmakers that features Bruce Baillie, Chick Strand, Robert Nelson and others preserved by the Academy Film Archive. It opens with live soundtracks for films by Pierre Clementi and the world premiere of Brecht Debackere’s documentary on Jacques Ledoux’s legendary EXPRMNTL festivals.

Details of the Gidal screenings are below and on the EVENTS page. The complete festival programme can be downloaded from the L’age d’or site.

INTRODUCTION TO PETER GIDAL
BRUSSELS, L’AGE D’OR FESTIVAL 2016

Friday 7 October 2016, at 9pm
Peter Gidal, Clouds, 1969, 10 min
Peter Gidal, Flare Out, 1992, 20 min
Peter Gidal, Volcano, 2002, 30 min
Peter Gidal, not far at all, 2013, 15 min

Saturday 8 October 2016, at 3pm
Peter Gidal, Hall, 1968-69, 10 min
Peter Gidal, Key, 1968-69, 10 min
Peter Gidal, Room Film 1973, 1973, 46 min (at 18fps)

Sunday 9 October 2016, at 4pm
Peter Gidal, Assumption, 1997, 1 min
Peter Gidal, Epilogue, 1978, 9 min
Peter Gidal, C/O/N/S/T/R/U/C/T, 1974/2016, 13 min
Peter Gidal, Condition of Illusion, 1975, 30 min
Peter Gidal, Coda I, 2013, 2 min
Peter Gidal, Coda II, 2013, 2 min
This programme will be repeated on Monday 10 October 2016, at 6pm.

Peter Gidal’s book Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966-2016 will be on sale in the Cinematek lobby.

Shoot Shoot Shoot: The London Film-Makers’ Co-operative 1966-76
Archive Gallery, Tate Britain, Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG
25 April – 17 July 2016

The exhibition Shoot Shoot Shoot: The London Film-Makers’ Co-operative 1966-76 in the Archive Gallery at Tate Britain is the first time that so many documents relating to the early years of the LFMC have been brought together. It includes posters, programme notes, press releases, newsletters, film stills, and notebooks. The majority of these items are loaned from the British Artists’ Film and Video Study Collection, a research centre based at Central Saint Martins, that was founded by David Curtis and Malcolm Le Grice in 2002. Additional materials are drawn from the private collections of the Cobbing Family Archive, Peter Gidal and Mark Webber, and the Tate library and archive.

Some of the materials on display will feature in the forthcoming book “Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative & British Avant-Garde Film 1966-76”, edited by Mark Webber, which will be published by LUX in autumn 2016. The history of the LFMC will also be told in a documentary presented by Miranda Sawyer, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in early June 2016.