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Divertimento
UNITED STATES · 1997

Divertimento

Stan Brakhage
abstraction mortality bodily decay cognitive dissolution artistic recovery
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Synopsis

This, painted in the hospital while recovering from cancer surgery in 1996, is - it seems to me - very related to De Kooning's Alzheimer's paintings. The mind, here, is seeking a "blank" and/or holding fast to tendrils of meaning which are stripped so bare as to be purely reflective of flesh tissue and irregular strands of cells. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

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