Pat O'Neill / MATRIX 262

September 28–November 27, 2016

The work of Pat O'Neill, a pioneer of avant-garde film and optical printing techniques, including films, sculpture, photography, and works on paper.

Read full description

Pat O’Neill: still from Runs Good, 1970; three-channel continuous video projection, transferred from 16mm film; color, silent; BAMPFA, museum purchase: Phoebe Apperson Hearst, by exchange. Image courtesy of the artist and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles.
Pat O'Neill: still from An Extra Wander for Ms. Chickie, 2016; color; courtesy of the artist.
Pat O'Neill: Safer than Springtime, 1964; fiberglass, aluminum, steel, paint; 48 x 39 x 30 in.; courtesy of the artist and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forrest.
Pat O’Neill: Untitled (animation cel from Saugus Series), 1973; lacquer paint on animation paper; 10 ½ x 16 in.; courtesy of the artist and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forrest.
Pat O'Neill / MATRIX 262, installation view

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

Water and Power
- Thursday, September 29 7 PM
Pat O'Neill
United States, 1989
Archival Prints

Pat O'Neill in person
Trouble in the Image
- Wednesday, September 28 7 PM
Pat O'Neill
United States, 1995
Pat O'Neill in person

Pat O'Neill / MATRIX 262

September 28–November 27, 2016

Los Angeles-based artist Pat O’Neill (b. 1939), a pioneer of avant-garde film and optical printing techniques, creates densely layered films and moving-image environments that explore the hybrid and expanded terrain of film, photography, and sculpture. A founding faculty member at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1970, O’Neill has been a key figure in West Coast experimental cinema for the past fifty years. His innovative use of the optical printer, which enables filmed images to be manipulated and altered directly on celluloid, marked a creative breakthrough in composite image-making in film.

MATRIX 262 features a wide selection of the films O’Neill has made since the 1960s, which will be shown on BAMPFA’s multiple screens—the Barbro Osher Theater, Theater Two, and the outdoor screen—at various times throughout the run of the exhibition. Examples of O'Neill's sculpture, photography, and works on paper will be on view in the galleries alongside Runs Good (1970/2012), which will be shown continuously as a three-channel projection. During the making of this film, O’Neill visited BAMPFA, where he encountered the color field canvases by Hans Hofmann. The Abstract Expressionist painter’s approach to color made a deep impression: O’Neill noted, “I was thinking about the idea of optical recession and advance, how colors occupy space depending on hue, saturation, and contrast with the field.” MATRIX 262 runs concurrent with the exhibition Push and Pull: Hans Hofmann, enabling visitors to see O’Neill’s work alongside the paintings that inform it.

Screenings

Outdoor Screen
(at the corner of Oxford and Addison Streets)

September 28 through November 27 (except October 25–28)
Daily, on the hour

Where the Chocolate Mountains (excerpt) (2015)

Theater Two
(on BAMPFA’s lower level)

September 28 through November 6
Wed & Thu 11–2 & 5–7 / Fri 11–2 & 5–9 / Sat & Sun 11–7
Program runs 60 mins and restarts at the top of each hour

An Extra Wander: for Miss Chickie (2016), commissioned by BAMPFA

Saugus Series (1974)

Sidewinder’s Delta (1976)

Foregrounds (1979)

Barbro Osher Theater

Wednesday, September 28, 7 p.m.
Trouble in the Image (Pat O'Neill, US, 1995, 35mm)
With Pat O’Neill in person

Thursday, September 29, 7 p.m.
Water and Power (Pat O'Neill, US, 1989, 35mm)
With Pat O’Neill in person

Less

Download the exhibition brochure (PDF)

Pat O’Neill / MATRIX 262 is co-organized by Apsara DiQuinzio, curator of modern and contemporary art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator and Kathy Geritz, film curator. The MATRIX Program is made possible by a generous endowment gift from Phyllis C. Wattis and the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees.