Fests and events, 2/20.

By David Hudson on 02/20/2009

"Working exclusively with appropriated footage for over a decade, [Gustav] Deutsch has become one of the major living practitioners of a tradition in avant-garde cinema stretching back to the works of Bruce Conner and Joseph Cornell," writes Ed Halter for Artforum. "A major retrospective at the Austrian Film Museum properly situates Deutsch in the materialist vein of fellow Viennese filmmakers like Peter Kubelka, Kurt Kren and Peter Tscherkassky. What distinguishes Deutsch from his forebears is his historical place at the tail-end of celluloid's reign: His practice thereby intersects with the increased role of archives in greater film culture, both conceptually and practically." Through Thursday.

"Film Comment Selects, now in its 10th year, does not have the institutional presence or historical authority of the New York Film Festival or New Directors/New Films, other mainstays of the Film Society calendar," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "Instead it has an eclectic, idiosyncratic spirit reflecting the magazine that is its guiding intelligence." More from Darrell Hartman (Interview) and James Van Maanen.

"Paul McCarthy's Low Life Slow Life: Part 2" is on at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco through May 30. Part of the exhibition is a series of screenings of works by the likes of Michael Snow, Les Levine, Bruce Nauman, Guy Debord, Lil Picard, Amikam Goldman, Valie Export and Kurt Kren.

"William Eggleston. Democratic Camera: Photography & Video 1961 - 2008." Today through May 17 at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.

A free screening on a Sunday afternoon: "Baeder: Pleasant Journeys and Good Eats along the Way," a doc about artist John Baeder, screening March 8 at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia.

[Photo: "Film ist. a girl & a gun," Gustav Deutsch, 2009]

Tags: Gustav Deutsch, John Baeder, William Eggleston