First Major U.S. David Lynch Museum Exhibition Coming to PAFA
This fall the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) will present what it’s calling the first major U.S. museum exhibition of the works of filmmaker David Lynch, who attended the school from 1965 to 1970.
The exhibit, titled “The Unified Earth,” will comprise works spanning Lynch’s career, including 90 paintings and drawings from the 1960s to present. It will examine Philadelphia’s influence on Lynch’s work, something exhibit curator Robert Cozzolino explains in a press release sent out this morning:
Throughout his career, Lynch has maintained that in Philadelphia “something clicked.” Philadelphia was a dark and dangerous place, but it also fueled immense creativity for him. Lynch has said that the biggest inspiration of his life was the city of Philadelphia. The industrial ruins, urban decay and strange visual juxtapositions Lynch experienced in the city struck him as beautiful because of, rather than despite, the emptiness and horror.
One of the Philly-centric sections will be a room dedicated to a multimedia installation project Lynch did in 1967, Six Men Getting Sick, a work PAFA refers to as Lynch’s first foray into filmmaking. Along with a staging of Six Men, this section will also include a collection of other short films Lynch made while living in Philadelphia, namely The Alphabet and The Grandmother.
Don’t get too excited yet, though. The exhibit doesn’t open until September 17, 2014. It will run through January 11th of the following year. For more information, go here. Or browse a few released images from the exhibition in the slideshow below:
