Exhibition Dates: January 17–March 8, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, January 17, 6–8 pm, Grunwald Gallery
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 12–4 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday.
YOU (probably) HAVEN’T SEEN THIS BEFORE (YPHSTB) is an exhibition that celebrates historically underrepresented narratives and motion picture practices that challenge and expand the spectrum of what is considered “cinema.” Curated by Carmel Curtis, Moving Image Curator & Digital Initiatives Lead, this selection of 34 rarely screened archival films has been preserved and made accessible thanks to the efforts of Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive.
Dating from 1937 to 2018, the 16mm films in YPHSTB represent 20th- and 21st -century North American communities including stories of those routinely excluded—elevating voices from rural Appalachia, to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, to the “Black Belt” of the South Side of Chicago. YPHSTB illustrates the artistic merits of film as a medium rich in potential for abstraction and experimentation—through manipulations of light, illusions of movement, and non-linear representations of time. Furthermore, YPHSTB focuses on works that would not traditionally be seen on a movie screen, let alone on the walls of a gallery—this includes home movies, discarded outtakes, and science experiments.
The artists and filmmakers represented in YPHSTB are individuals and groups, known and unknown, experienced and amateur. Trailblazing female filmmakers like Maya Deren and Madeline Anderson, college students like Thomas Agnello and Loretta Smith, and IU affiliates like David Anspaugh and Charlie Allen are examples of media makers who may serve as relatable inspirations for exhibition visitors.
Discarded outtakes from a 1958 film produced by IU Audio-Visual Center, “Indianapolis Attacks its Slums” serves as the exhibition’s centerpiece. Documenting the devastation as well as the joy experienced by poor, mostly Black communities in Indianapolis in the late 1950s, the selection prompts closer examination of both material and community that have long been disregarded.
