Leaps Into The Void
Cinematic Work From the Menil Archives
Curator Andrea Grover in attendance
Free Admission 

Aurora Picture Show and The Menil Collection come together to present "Leaps Into the Void: Cinematic Works from the Menil Archives." Curated by Aurora Founder Andrea Grover, this free outdoor screening will show samples of works that resonate with the exhibition, “Leaps into the Void: Documents of Nouveau Realist Performance” from largely unseen films and videos in the museum archive.  The exhibit, on view from March 19 to August 8, explores the radical gestures of this avant-garde movement which sought to explore new ways of perceiving reality through aggressive acts and “poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality” (Pierre Restany).  

Film titles selected for the screening include the following: "Niki de Saint Phalle" by Francois de Menil, 1982, 16:00 minutes; "Tinguely: A Kinetic Cosmos" by Francois de Menil, 1970s, 30:00 minutes (19:00 minute excerpt); "Jésus Cola" by Martial Raysse,1966, 10:33 minutes; "The Monotone Symphony" by Yves Klein, 1960, 3:00 minutes (audio only); "La Revolution Bleue" by François Lévy-Kuentz, 2006, 52:00 minutes (6:00 minute excerpt).

Andrea Grover is a migrant curator, artist and writer. In 1998, she founded Aurora Picture Show, a now recognized center for filmic art, that began in Grover’s living room as “the world’s most public home theater.” She recently programmed an evening of films for Dia Art Foundation and curated an exhibition for Carnegie Mellon University’s Miller Gallery. 

Cover Photo credit: Niki de Sainte Phalle and Geraldine Aramanda at the opening of the Machine Snow at the Rice Museum, Rice University, March 1969. Photo Hikcye-Robertson. Courtesy Menil Archives.