Film has the capacity to mirror—and manipulate—reality like almost no other medium. As part of the exhibition Ordinary Madness, experience two nights of film drawn from the museum’s extraordinary collection of works from the 1960s and 1970s. Some of these vintage prints haven’t been screened in decades and may not be seen again for years to come.

This program brings together works that focus on the irrational, ambivalent, and chaotic aspects of everyday experience and pop-culture phenomena. Because each in its own way interrogates and threatens the order imposed on society by the moral and legal establishment, several of these films were—and remain—controversial milestones.

Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising (1963, 30 min.) and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965, 3:30 min.)
Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray (1962, 4 min.)
Carolee Schneemann, Fuses (1964–1967, 22 min.)
Ed Emshwiller, Relativity (1966, 40 min.)