Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present Nathaniel Dorsky’s film stills portfolio, Arboretum Cycle, from May 1 – 18 in the gallery's viewing room at 176 Grand Street, New York, NY. Accompanying the presentation is the limited-edition book of photographs by Dorsky entitled, Eclogues: Letters and Correspondence. This coincides with Illuminated Hours, the film series retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Anthology Film Archives, New York with screenings from May 9 – 19, 2024 that celebrates 60 years of Dorsky’s poetic filmmaking.
The portfolio, Arboretum Cycle, extracts intimate moments of observation from Nathaniel Dorsky’s seven Arboretum Cycle films, shot between February and December of 2017. They emphasize light as life's energy through the observation of plants over the span of four seasons in Northern California, spontaneously manifesting as the stages of life: early childhood, youth, maturity, old age, and death. As Dorsky describes the cycle:
“For the past several years California experienced an extreme drought. But this past winter good fortune brought a bountiful amount of storms and liquid refreshment. The spring that followed took on magical and celebratory qualities of energy, joy, fullness, and rebirth.
In walking distance from my apartment is San Francisco’s Arboretum located in Golden Gate Park. I decided that I would make a film now on a single subject and that subject would be the light – not the objects, but the sacredness of the light itself in this splendid garden. What I did not know is that the great beauty of this magnificent spring would bring forth not one, but seven films, each one immediately following the previous. I began to photograph on the second week of February and finished the editing of the seventh film during the last days of December.
These seven films spontaneously manifested as the stages of life: early childhood, youth, maturity, old age, and death. Elohim was photographed in early spring, the week of the lunar new year, the very spirit of creation. Abaton was photographed a few weeks later in the full ripeness of spring, the very purity and intoxication of passion. Coda was photographed in late spring, in the aftermath of this purity, the first shades of mortality and knowledge.
Ode, photographed in early summer, is a soft textured song of the fallen, the dissonant reds of death, seeds, and rebirth. September is indeed, Indian summer, the halcyon swan song of earthly blessings. Monody, shot in the fading autumnal glory is an energized declaration of the end. And Epilogue, photographed in early December, rests in quietude, the garden’s energy now descending into the dark, damp earth.
This cycle of seven sections takes in a complete year in the world of light and plants. Not only do we witness the progression of the seasons but also the development of the filmmaking during this year-long exploration of light as life’s energy.”
Nathaniel Dorsky (b. New York, NY, 1943) lives in San Francisco, CA. He has presented films at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Tate Modern, London; the Filmoteca Española, Madrid; the Prague Film Archive; the Vienna Film Museum; the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; the Harvard Film Archive; Princeton University; Yale University; and the Whitney Biennial in 2000 and 2012. The first complete retrospective of his films was shown at the 53rd New York Film Festival (2015). He has been the recipient of many awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, two from the Rockefeller Foundation, and one from the LEF Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the California Arts Council.