Thornton Dial, McCalla, Alabama, 2007. Photo courtesy of Jerry Siegel. © Estate of Thornton Dial / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Ursula Screenings: ‘Seize the Fire. Films for Thornton Dial’ curated by Greg de Cuir Jr at Metrograph
Marking the closing of the exhibition 'Thornton Dial. The Visible and The Invisible', at Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street, Ursula Magazine is thrilled to present a corresponding film series curated by Greg de Cuir Jr, ‘Seize the Fire. Films for Thornton Dial,’ in collaboration with Metrograph.
‘The Visible and The Invisible’ presents large-scale paintings and assemblages by late American master Thornton Dial (1928 – 2016) and features major works from each period of Dial’s extraordinary career.
In response to the Dial exhibition, Greg de Cuir Jr’s film series takes inspiration from Dial’s life in Alabama, where in addition to making art, he worked as a welder at the Pullman train plant in Bessemer. De Cuir’s film selections span multiple eras and genres, and like Dial, create a seductive and symbolically layered assemblage that wrestles with questions of American history and the role of the artist in society.
SATURDAY 4 JANUARY
4.20 PM
STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), Directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
8 min
STEAMBOAT BILL JR (1928), Directed by Charles Reisner
1 hr 11 min
Purchase tickets here.
‘This first offering references cinema in the year that Dial was born. In 1928 Buster Keaton made Steamboat Bill Jr, a masterpiece of silent era comedy that features possibly the most famous death-defying stunt that Keaton ever executed. Keaton's film inspired Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, the animated short that introduced Mickey Mouse into popular consciousnesses. These creative forces changed the world that Dial was born into, and they also correspond specifically to his world in the Deep South, with steamboat races and references to confederate generals.’
- Greg de Cuir Jr
SUNDAY 5 JANUARY
12.40 PM
STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), Directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks
8 min
STEAMBOAT BILL JR (1928), Directed by Charles Reisner
1 hr 11 min
Purchase tickets here.
FRIDAY 10 JANUARY
6.20 PM
QUALITY CONTROL (2011), Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson
1 hr 11 min
Purchase tickets here.
‘This offering comes courtesy of Kevin Jerome Everson, the most important Black film artist in the Americas. In ‘Quality Control’ he studies a dry cleaners in Alabama, focusing on process, labor and machinery. Dial would have appreciated this vision and seen his own experience as a factory worker in it.’
8 PM
STRANGE FRUIT (1969), Directed by Skip Norman
29 min
DREAMS ARE COLDER THAN DEATH (2013), Directed by Arthur Jafa
52 min
Purchase tickets here.
‘This offering is a discursive incantation of Black aesthetics and politics. Skip Norman was born and raised in the DMV. 'Strange Fruit' documents a speech by Bobby Seal in Europe. The film shares a title and thematic connection with a painting by Dial on view at HW. Arthur Jafa was born and raised in the Deep South, in the Delta, what he calls the cradle of all Black culture in the US. The dreams and legacies that are spoken of in his haunting film emanate directly from the experiences of Dial's generation in that region. We might draw some parallels between the way Dial works with materials and assemblage, also social commentary, and the modes in which Jafa operates. In any case, Jafa is the heir to the unclassifiable brilliance of Thornton Dial.’
SATURDAY 8 FEBRUARY
6.20 PM
4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997), Directed by Spike Lee
Screened on 35mm
1 hr 42 min
Purchase tickets here.
‘This final offering deals specifically with Black life and Alabama. The church bombing depicted in ‘4 Little Girls’ by Spike Lee is a turning point in modern American history. This event would have marked Dial deeply, but it was consistent with the world he knew -- a world of devastating White supremacy and deadly homegrown terrorism.’
SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY
5.30 PM
4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997), Directed by Spike Lee
Screened on 35mm
1 hr 42 min
Purchase tickets here.
Tickets for all screenings can be purchased through Metrograph’s website or via the links above for each individual film.
'Strange Fruit: Alabama Grapes,' 2003. © Estate of Thornton Dial / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein
About Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial was born in Emelle, Alabama, in 1928, and worked as a welder at the Pullman train plant in nearby Bessemer for much of his adult life. He emerged as an important original voice in art at the start of the 1990s and was celebrated in 1993 with a survey at the New Museum in New York City. About his work in the exhibition Amiri Baraka wrote: ‘The paintings featured in ‘Thornton Dial: Image of the Tiger’ will have to be acknowledged, one day soon, as one of the most important artistic gestalts by a North American painter of the period, and remember that these are a single fragment of Dial’s oeuvre.’ Refusing to be categorized or limited to the confines of any school or genre, Dial continued until his death in 2016 to develop a body of physically seductive and symbolically layered assemblages that wrestle with questions of American history and the role of the artist in society, challenging all boundaries in becoming a central figure in the expanded canon of contemporary art.
About Greg de Cuir Jr
Greg de Cuir Jr is an independent curator, writer, lecturer and translator. He has organised programs for Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Frieze Film in London, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Anthology Film Archives in New York, e-flux in New York, 7th Biennale de Lubumbashi, EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, Locarno Film Festival and others. His writing has been published in CURA., MUBI Notebook, Cineaste, Millennium Film Journal and numerous anthologies and catalogs. De Cuir is co-founder + artistic director of Kinopravda Institute in Belgrade.
About Metrograph
Metrograph is the ultimate destination for movie lovers. A special curated world of cinema inspired by the great New York movie theaters of the 1920s and the Commissaries of the Hollywood Studio backlots, Metrograph is a community inhabited by movie professionals screening their work, taking meetings, watching films, collaborating together—an audience built around our shared love of cinema.
About ‘Ursula’
Ursula is a quarterly magazine published by Hauser & Wirth, that celebrates the artistic achievement and creativity of the gallery's artists and those beyond. Through the printed magazine, digital content platform and live programs, Ursula champions artistic practices that challenge and interrogate the future, highlighting a diverse range of contemporary culture that Hauser & Wirth finds compelling. Featuring stories from the worlds of art, design, film, books, food, and sustainability, Ursula invites readers to think critically, ask questions, and engage with the ideas shaping our world. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Ursula appeals to a broad, inquisitive readership, from dedicated insiders to curious observers. ‘It has always been our mission to make the gallery a home for our artists where other thinkers, writers, and visionaries can also gather and engage,’ gallery President Iwan Wirth told Artnet News. ‘Now Ursula will be an editorial home as well, a truly global magazine that reflects our philosophy.’
UPCOMING EVENTS - New York
Ursula Conversations: Annie Leibovitz, Amy Sherald & Darren Walker
11 Jan 2025, 3 PM
The Great Hall at Cooper Union – Foundation Building, 7 E 7th St, New York, NY 10003