Films by Maria Lassnig

"I now stand at the top of the mountain of maturity / and look down on the long valley of life, / but now I feel more cautious than wise, / life gives you no other choice. / It is art yes yes, it makes me younger and younger, / it first makes the spirit hungry and then full."

Maria Lassnig's sung self-portrait "Cantata" (1992), from which these verses are taken, is the most recent of a total of nine short films that sixpackfilm is presenting this evening. They will be projected as fresh 16mm prints, finally making Lassnig's film work available in its entirety for the big screen in Austria.

The unconventional stencil, watercolor and felt-tip pen animations, Lassnig's bluebox performances, her vocal interludes and her splitscreen experiments reveal, perhaps even more clearly than her painting, the humor and love of experimentation of the Carinthian artist, who is celebrating her 87th birthday this year. (Maya McKechneay)

Program
Baroque Statues (1970-74, 16 min.)
Iris (1971, 10 min.)
Chairs (1971, 4min.)
Selfportrait (1971, 5 min.)
Shapes (1972, 10 min.)
Couples (1972, 10 min.)
Palmistry (A/USA 1973, 10 min.)
Art Education (1976, 16 min.)
Maria Lassnig cantata Maria Lassnig / Hubert Sielecki (1992, 8 min.)