Description:
A timely volume on the work to uncover an important but neglected feminist experimental filmmaker and artist
Published with Soft Network.
This book is the first to focus on the life and work of Susan Brockman (1937-2001), a prolific American filmmaker and artist who was involved in the feminist art movement, the documentary filmmaking community and the downtown New York art scenes of the 1960s-'90s. Through her distinctive approach to framing, editing and collage, Brockman created interior worlds and tableaux that have a palpable but enigmatic emotional resonance. In 2021, Soft Network began a three-year journey in her archive, a project that uncovered her largely forgotten contributions to experimental image-making. This eponymous monograph charts the organization's process and methodology, revealing the immense effort that goes into caring for and creating access to an artist's legacy and proposing new ways of considering what this work can mean.Review Quotes: The slim, 112-page softcover has a workbook feel to it. It brings together a selection of Brockman's photographs, stills from her films, ephemera from her performances and editorial work, some of her own writing about her work, and invited contributions from scholars, family members, and her fellow artists. Together, these begin to achieve the goal set forth by Soft Network and the promise of the opening lines of the book: offering a much needed access point to Brockman and her work.--Megan Liberty "The Brooklyn Rail"