Maria Lassnig (1919–2014) is internationally recognized as one of the most important painters of the 20th and 21st centuries. The leitmotif of her painting, the act of rendering her body awareness visible, found additional expression in the films she made in New York in the early 1970s. And what films they are! Influenced by painting, but also by U.S. experimental film, the feminist movement, animation, and her new hometown of New York, Lassnig created a remarkable body of radically independent short films in just a few years.
While some of these films have long since been part of her canonical works, many remained unfinished. These "films in progress" can be regarded as autobiographical notes as well as an artistic experiment featuring many of Lassnig's recognizable subjects and techniques. In 2018, this filmic legacy was restored and, in many cases, completed according to her original concept and instructions by two close collaborators, artists Mara Mattuschka and Hans Werner Poschauko.
This new volume in the FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen series focuses on Maria Lassnig's cinematic oeuvre and offers insight into the filmmaker's world of ideas through essays, the first comprehensive index of Lassnig's cinematic works, and a large selection of her own previously unpublished notes.
The book includes contributions by James Boaden, Beatrice von Bormann, Jocelyn Miller, Stefanie Proksch-Weilguni, and Isabella Reicher as well as extensive conversations on the rediscovery and restoration of Lassnig’s films. Thanks to the cooperation with the Maria Lassnig Foundation, this publication is the first to juxtapose Lassnig's paintings, sketches and notes on film with her filmic work. The volume is richly illustrated and includes an annotated image section, while the enclosed DVD produced in collaboration with INDEX-Edition includes a selection of the „Films in Progress."
