Kendall Messick: “The Projectionist”
and
Susan Brenner: “After-Migrations”

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 8, 4 - 6pm

Main Gallery:
Kendall Messick: “The Projectionist”
The Projectionist exhibit is a multi-media installation examining the life of Gordon Brinckle, including Kendall’s large scale color photographs of the theater and artist, Brinckle’s original drawings, designs and models, and photographic documentation of the artist’s history.
Screening of “The Projectionist” video with comments by the filmmaker, Kendall Messick, TBA.,
Gordon Brinckle has maintained a lifelong consuming fascination for movie palaces of the 1920’s, and he spent his career working in every occupation associated with the presentation of films. Driven by a desire to hold on to a time when the theater rivaled the movie for the audience’s attention, he also constructed his own private working theater, the Alvin Shalimar, in the basement of his modest home in suburban Delaware, beginning in 1959. Photographer and filmmaker Kendall Messick grew up in the house across the street; while he was home for a visit in 2001, he became reacquainted with his neighbor, now 91, and his carefully preserved creation. The vivid panorama he rediscovered there prompted him to film a 32-minute documentary, The Projectionist (2003), which offers a penetrating glimpse into the self-created fantasy world. Brinckle’s candor and natural storytelling abilities imbue the film with a poignancy that underlies the Alvin Shalimar itself. My conversation with Messick reveals how extraordinary ambitions can manifest in one seemingly ordinary man.
From: Folk Art Magazine, Fall 2006
Introduction to Conversation column by Tanya Heinrich.