Join artist Sandow Birk for a private screening of Dante’s Inferno. This feature-length animated movie features puppets—all handmade by Birk—created in the tradition of “Toy Theatre,” a European style of puppetry from the 1700s that uses paper puppets just slightly larger than six inches tall. The film follows Dante on a tour of modern-day Hell. Birk’s images depict Dante as a contemporary Southern Californian who is lost in the midst of his life. “It was right around the time of day,” Dante says, “when clocks are punched and beers are opened but there I was heading towards a darkness that was beyond what I could ever imagine.”
Following the screening there will be a Q&A with the artist.
The private screening is $6 for SJMA Members and $10 for Non-members. Fee includes admission to SJMA on July 17, 2010. Currently on view are four of Sandow Birk’s large-scale paintings including Paradiso, Purgatorio, Inferno and San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA.