Babette Mangolte emerged as a key figure in New York’s 1970s avant garde art, film and performance scenes, and is celebrated equally for her work as a filmmaker, photographer and cinematographer. For over four decades, her practice has addressed complex questions about the act of looking.
In The Camera: Je, or La Caméra: I, viewers can experience the act of shooting photographs from the photographer’s perspective. Using a technique called the ‘subjective camera’, Mangolte invites the viewer behind the camera to witness the artist’s process and the power relations at play. The film is structured in three parts: studio photography, street photography and a final section in which the images produced are reviewed.
Programme
The Camera: Je, or La Caméra: I, United States1977, 16mm, black and white and colour, sound, 88 min
The screening is followed by a discussion and Q&A with the artist.
Babette Mangolte The Camera: Je composite: Mimi Johnson / Worth Street 1997. Courtesy the artist
See more from Babette Mangolte
This event forms part of the Tate Film Pioneers series Babette Mangolte: How to Look. In dialogue with the artist’s display on Level 3 of Tate Modern’s Blavatnik Building, this series presents three films and an artist talk exploring the act of looking. Also see Babette Mangolte: What Maisie Knew.
About Babette Mangolte
Babette Mangolte (b.1941, France) is a French-American artist working in film, video, photography and installation. She was one of the first women admitted to the Louis Lumière-founded National School of Photography and Cinematography in Paris, and has since made seven feature-length films and a number of non-narrative short films exploring movement, landscape, subjectivity and the acts of looking and image-making. Mangolte emerged as a key figure in New York’s 1970s avant garde art, film and performance scenes. In addition to her own works, she has served as cinematographer for artists including Chantal Akerman, Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer and Michael Snow, filmed and photographed significant performances by artists Trisha Brown, Robert Morris, and Marina Abramović and documented exhibitions by Robert Rauschenberg. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2016) and VOX centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal (2013). Mangolte is currently a professor at the University of California, San Diego.
