Nada by Maurice Lemaître
16mm print, b&w, silent, 3' 1978
There is a long tradition of black abstractions in Western art. Outbursting at a regular rhythm, its presence is by no means arbitrary. The black work of art is a necessary intermission, an unreasonable void arising from an inner urge or from society's need for regeneration. Framed by writing, film, painting or drawing the monolithic autonomous black returns, as in Kubrick's 2001, to change the course of evolution. The 16 mm film Nada, made in 1978 by the living legend Maurice Lemaître, belongs to this long genealogy of works that can be traced back to Robert Fludd's black page in the hermetic treatise Utriusque Cosmi (1617), Paul Bilhaud's painting Combat de Nègres dans un Tunnel (1882), Malevich infamous Black Square (1915), Man Ray's black photograph Ma Dernière Photographie (1929) or Dick Higgins Black Mirror (1959). Claimed by the author as the first film with no sound or image, Nada will be screened at Oporto as a three minute experience with the black void and the concrete power of its nothingness.
Once you had the first luxuriant taste of Nothing, Nothing else will do. æ
Friday, May 20, 11 pm
Oporto new entrance: Calçada Salvador Correia de Sá 42 , 2F, Lisbon
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