Community Corner
Armory Show Film returns to the NBMAA
Connecticut Filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton Return to the New Britain Museum of American Art for an Encore Screening of “The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show”
NEW BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT (April 7, 2014) – In September, 217 Films’ new documentary “The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show” was shown for the first time anywhere at the New Britain Museum of American Art. It was a sold out, standing room only crowd and, due to popular demand, this film will return for an encore screening at the museum on Thursday, April 24 at 5:30PM. Filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton will introduce the film.
Excerpts from the film can be viewed at: http://vimeo.com/two17films/videos. The full screening schedule can be viewed at: http://two17filmsschedule.blogspot.com.
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A recent review of “The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show” in The Dartmouth said that “Michael Maglaras...brought the drama of the original show back to life.” Critic Hobart Cornell stated “The film…is as close to attending the exhibition as one can get.”
WHAT: Encore Screening of 217 Films’ “The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show.” Introduced by filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton.
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WHEN: Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 5:30 PM
WHERE: New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington St., New Britain, Connecticut
COST: Free with museum admission
FMI: Heather Whitehouse, TEL: 860-229-0257 Ext. 203, whitehouseh@nbmaa.org
More about the film: From February 17 until March 15, 1913, thousands of Americans pushed their way through the doors of the 69th Regiment Armory on the east side of New York City while a battle was waging “for or against” Modern Art for the first time.
What they saw would annoy and infuriate some...and captivate, delight, and inspire many.
What resulted from these four weeks of mass exposure to European artists such as Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh, and the upstart Marcel Duchamp (with his “Nude Descending a Staircase”), as well as such Americans as Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Charles Sheeler, changed how Americans came to understand their own times. By entering through the doors of an armory, they had entered through the doors of the Modern Era.
“The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show” features more than 60 works by American and European painters and sculptors and probes deeply into the history of how the show was organized. It provides fascinating glimpses into the backstage efforts of the American artists Arthur B. Davies, Walter Pach, and Walt Kuhn as they worked tirelessly to bring a new art to a new American audience.
Produced by 217 Films. Written, directed and narrated by Michael Maglaras. Executive Producer Terri Templeton. 2013. NR. 90 Minutes. www.two17films.com
More about 217 Films: 217 Films is an independent film company devoted to the American artistic experience.
In 2005, Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton released their first film, “Cleophas and His Own,” taken from the American Modernist painter Marsden Hartley's epic narrative of love and loss, a private and personal narrative which was first published many years after his death. In “Cleophas and His Own,” Maglaras both directed and played the role of Hartley.
In 2008, 217 Films’ second release was the first-ever documentary film on the life of Hartley, called “Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet.”
In 2010, with their film “John Marin: Let the Paint be Paint!” they established, through the first documentary made about this important painter, that John Marin was one of the fathers of American Modernism.
Among other distinctions, these films have been shown to acclaim at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
In 2012, in honor of the re-publication by the Library of America of the six seminal graphic novels of the American master Lynd Ward, they released the film “O Brother Man: The Art and Life of Lynd Ward.”
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the art exhibition that introduced Modernism to America, in September 2013 “The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show” was produced and is currently on tour across the United States.
Their sixth film “Enough to Live On: The Art of the WPA” will be released in 2015 in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Federal Art Project under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
The Sacramento Bee called Michael Maglaras a filmmaker of “Bergman-like gravitas.” His films have been described as “virtuoso filmmaking” (National Gallery of Art), “alive and fresh” (Art New England), “elegiac and insightful” (Naples Daily News), and “unforgettable” (Journal of American History). David Berona, author of “Wordless Books” has said of “O Brother Man” “This film is stunning,” and Judith Regan of Sirius XM called it “magnificent.”
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