Seven Films by Paul Sietsema examines seven films the artist has made between 2002 and 2014. Empire, a twenty-four-minute wordless journey into philosophical space via Clement Greenberg’s living room, was the subject of an exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 2003. Subsequent films, from Figure 3 (centerpiece of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 2009) to At the hour of tea (first shown at the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2013) have extended Sietsema’s exploration of time, form, and the material capacities of 16mm film.

As Sarah Robayo Sheridan writes, “The slow march of these images across long takes and static framing is anchored to an extensive physical archive of sculpted objects, which in turn generate their own status as unwitting ethnographic fragments, fragile remains of the artistic voyage.” In addition to Robayo Sheridan’s essay, the book includes a text by Michael Ned Holte and a detailed account of each film by curator Nora Burnett Abrams. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the book is extensively illustrated with stills from the seven films.

Clothbound with paper jacket
136 pages, 126 images
9½ × 6 inches; 24 × 15 cm

ISBN 978-88-6749-100-1

Click here for Sietsema’s exhibition at the MCA Denver.