GROUP SCREENING, DISCUSSION & BOOK SIGNING:
Poetry of Fire: Chromatic Exploration in the films of Ana Mendieta, Derek Jarman, and P. Staff
​
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Sunday, April 6, 2025 at 3:00 PM
MOCA Store and Del Vaz Projects presents Poetry of Fire, a screening of moving-image works by the artists Ana Mendieta (1946–1985), Derek Jarman (1942–1994), and P. Staff (b. 1987), all of whom are the subject of the current exhibition Earthshaker—on view at Del Vaz Projects in Santa Monica through April 19, 2025. As an extension of the work in the exhibition, this screening considers how each artist applies chromatic, temporal, and technological manipulations to Super 8, 16mm, and video footage to visualize an alchemical fusion between the earth and body. The group screening will be followed by a conversation with artist P. Staff, Jay Ezra Nayssan, the Founder and Chief Curator of Del Vaz Projects, and Chrissie Iles, the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Afterward, there will be a book signing for Del Vaz Projects’ recent publication on Earthshaker, featuring essays by Eva Hayward, McKenzie Wark, and Maxi Wallenhorst.
​
Image Credits: (1) Ana Mendieta, Butterfly, 1975. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Alison Jacques, London; (2) P. Staff, Weed Killer, 2017. © P. Staff. Courtesy of the Artist and Commonwealth & Council; (3) Derek Jarman, Journey to Avebury, 1971. Courtesy © 2014 LUMA Foundation; (4) Ana Mendieta, X-ray, 1975. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Alison Jacques, London; (5) P. Staff, On Venus, 2019. © P. Staff. Courtesy of the Artist and Commonwealth & Council; (6) Ana Mendieta, Energy Charge, 1975. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Alison Jacques, London; (7) Derek Jarman, Death Dance, 1973. Courtesy © 2014 LUMA Foundation; (8) P. Staff, La Nuit Américaine, 2023. © P. Staff. Courtesy of the Artist and Commonwealth & Council.
