Related Events

OPENING LECTURE: SHADOW VISIONARIES
January 10, 11 am
Manton Research Center auditorium

Exhibition curator Anne Leonard, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, introduces Shadow Visionaries: French Artists Against the Current, 1840–70. Offering a new take on mid-nineteenth-century French art, the exhibition emphasizes the powerful role of fantasy and the imagination during an era when Realism was presumed to be ascendant.

Free. Accessible seats available. Call 413 458 0524 with any questions.

EXILED ON THE EARTH: NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND RISK
February 21, 2 pm
Manton Research Center auditorium

Richard Taws, professor and head of the History of Art Department at University College London, presents a talk in conjunction with the Shadow Visionaries exhibition. Taws examines how representations of infrastructure, nature, and technology shaped the cultural imaginaries of nineteenth-century urban modernity, and how they intersected with contemporary ideas about time and history in France. Focusing on artists featured in Shadow Visionaries, including Charles Meryon, Victor Hugo, and Nadar, the talk explores tensions between organic life and mechanical form, visibility and invisibility, and tradition and transformation, in Paris and further afield.

Free. Accessible seats available. Call 413 458 0524 with any questions.

SHADOW VISIONARIES FILM SERIES
January 22, January 29, February 5 & February 12, 6 pm
Manton Research Center auditorium

Inspired by the Shadow Visionaries exhibition, the Clark presents a series of twentieth-century French films that echo with meditations on memory and longing. Prepare yourself for fantastical allegories and crumbling, ruined cityscapes.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, WITH NEW LIVE SCORE
January 22

Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” director Jean Epstein conjures an atmospheric masterpiece. The hero, having indirectly caused the death of his beloved, stubbornly tries to resurrect her spirit by devoting himself to painting and sculpture. Epstein conveys the twilight zone between life and death through lingering dissolves and a brilliant use of slow motion. This 1928 film shows how the initial obsession with Poe, captured in the Shadow Visionaries exhibition, continues into the twentieth century. (Run time: 1 hour, 3 minutes)

This screening is accompanied by a newly composed score by Paul de Jong and Matthew Gold, performed live. The event is jointly presented by the Williams College Department of Music and the Clark.

Tickets $10 ($8 members, $7 college students, $5 children 17 and under). For tickets, visit events.clarkart.edu.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
January 29

Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale masterpiece—in which the pure love of a beautiful girl melts the heart of a feral but gentle beast—is a landmark of motion picture fantasy, with unforgettably romantic performances by Jean Marais and Josette Day. Director Jean Cocteau’s spectacular visions of enchantment, desire, and death in Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) have become timeless icons of cinematic wonder. (Run time: 1 hour, 36 minutes)

Free.

LA JETÉE
February 5

Filmmaker Chris Marker has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Marker’s La Jetée is one of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made, a tale of time travel told in still images. The nostalgia for architectural photography, captured in Shadow Visionaries, echoes throughout the haunting film. (Run time: 28 minutes)

Free.

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN
February 12

In this 1995 film, a child smiles delightedly in his toy-filled room as Santa emerges from the chimney, but joy turns to terror as the bearded visitor is followed by more of the same. cut to a man screaming in a laboratory where, unable to dream himself, he has stolen the nightmare of a kidnapped orphan. The opening of another of Caro and Jeunet's forays into the fantastique is the perfect introduction to what is essentially an inventive blend of dream, fairy tale, and myth, and to a strange, sinister sea-girt world that functions according to its own crazy logic. After his infant brother is abducted by a gang of semi-robotic Cyclops, kindly strong-man One (Perlman) sets off on a search that will unite him with feisty nine-year-old orphan Miette (Vittet) and lead him to the sea-rig laboratory inhabited by the evil Krank (Emilfork), his six cloned brothers (Pinon), their diminutive "mother," and Uncle Irvin, a sardonic brain floating in a fish tank. (Run time: 1 hour, 52 minutes)

Free.
Accessible seats available for all films. Call 413 458 0524 with any questions.

SCHOOL VACATION WEEK
February 17–20
Daily Special Activities

School’s out, monsters are in! Head to the Clark for all forms of fun connected to the exhibition, Shadow Visionaries: French Artists Against the Current, 1840–70. Discover themes of imagination, fantasy, and ghostly realities with exciting programming all week. From 10 am–12 pm, drop in to sculpt your own gargoyle or otherworldly creature out of mixed media materials. At 1 pm, join a Clark educator for an all-ages interactive tour of Shadow Visionaries that includes playful writing and storytelling activities. On Friday, immerse yourself in the otherworldly with a marathon of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, screening from 1–4 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium. Throughout the week, use our “monster mash-up” activity card to explore the exhibition, and draw your own fantastic being inspired by the skeletons, ghouls, and creepy creatures in the show.

Tour capacity is limited. Pick up a ticket at the Clark Center admissions desk, available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Family programs are generously supported by Allen & Company.

DINNER AND THE SHOW: SHADOW VISIONARIES
February 14 | 5:30 pm: Show; 6:30 pm: Dinner
Clark Center lower level

Join Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Anne Leonard for a special introduction to Shadow Visionaries, followed by a three-course meal inspired by nineteenth-century France. Constellation Culinary’s Chef Chris Gouty brings his creative spin to classical French cooking and the themes of memory, fantasy, and longing that anchor the exhibition. With subtle nods to Valentine’s Day, Dinner and the Show perfectly combines art history, food, and fun.

The Clark Center galleries will be open from 5:30–6:30 pm with docents stationed throughout. Dinner begins at 6:30 pm.

Tickets $115 ($95 members). A ticket includes three courses and paired wine. Cash bar also available.

For dietary restrictions, menu information, and to register, visit events.clarkart.edu.

SHADOW VISIONARIES CLOSING CONCERT: DAVID KAPLAN AND ARAIDNE GREIF
March 7 | 2 pm
Manton Research Center auditorium

Pianist David Kaplan and Soprano Ariadne Greif celebrate the closing of the Shadow Visionaries exhibition with a concert that draws a direct line between Romanticism and Surrealism. Works by Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Francis Poulenc ruminate on ambiguity, liminality, love, irony, irrationality, absurdity, and the grotesque. Hector Berlioz’s crepuscular and revelatory Nuits d’été (Summer Nights) is the centerpiece of this program. Nuits d’été is a group of six songs based on poems by Théophile Gautier, the composer’s friend and neighbor. The poems were selected from Gautier’s La Comédie de la Mort (The Comedy of Death), published in 1838. Rodolphe Bresdin’s print titled The Comedy of Death, on view in the Shadow Visionaries exhibition, draws inspiration from this same source.

Tickets $20 ($16 members, $14 college students, $10 children 17 and under). Accessible seats available.