Frank Lloyd Wright's
Guggenheim Museum

To house Solomon Guggenheim's collection of modern art, Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned a powerful spatial experience, one that would revolutionize the relationship between people and art. The result, the iconic Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, utilized stunning innovation in form and Wright's concept of organic architecture to radically transform the museum experience. It has often been said that the greatest work in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum is the building itself. What makes the Guggenheim an architectural and cultural icon? How did Wright conceive of and develop his ideas for the building's coiling ramp and magnificent rotunda? And how does it continue to challenge our collective understanding of art museums even into the 21st century? Neil Levine, world renowned architectural historian and professor at Harvard University, takes us on an engaging and personal tour of the building and its history. The tour is fun, provocative, and will leave you with a clear understanding of how "The Guggenheim" has forever changed our assumptions of what an art museum can be.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio MC#934

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater MC#819

Rocaterrania

by Brett Ingram

Rocaterrania is a feature length documentary journey into the secret world of 76 year old Renaldo Kuhler, a visionary artist who invented an imaginary country to survive his disaffected youth and illustrated the nation's history for six decades.

Rocaterrania is a tiny nation of eastern European immigrants who purchased a tract of land along the Canadian border, just north of the Adirondack Mountains in New York, after growing restless with America's notions of democracy. Over the next sixty years, Rocaterrania saw two revolutions and the rise and fall of a succession of czars, dictators, and presidents among a cast of characters vaguely resembling Russian historical figures.

But as the film reveals, each change in government reflects a deeper transformative meaning for Renaldo, an outsider who struggled to escape an emotionally abusive family and searched for freedom within a real nation threatened by forces of conformity and fearful of individuality.

Featuring an eclectic original score by Merge Records instrumental artists Shark Quest, Rocaterrania unveils Kuhler's astounding body of work to the world and tells his extraordinary life story in the process.

Monster Road MC#856

Prometheus' Garden MC#857

Merce Cunningham
Dance Company:

Robert Rauschenberg Collaborations: Suite for Five, Summerspace, Interscape - 3 Disc Set

In 1954, Robert Rauschenberg became the Resident Designer to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, a position he held for ten years. During that time these friends and collaborators, along with the musician John Cage, created some of the most iconoclastic artworks of the 20th century. This three-DVD set showcases these great artists' work, along with the work of another, filmmaker Charles Atlas. The DVDs are accompanied by an illustrated essay by Bonnie Brooks.

Charles Atlas has directed and collaborated on over 35 film or video projects with Merce Cunningham and served as the company's filmmaker-in-residence for ten years (1974-1983). The three films in this collection showcase Atlas's direction and editing of films and include the 2003 revival of Suite for Five, the 1999 revival of Summerspace, and the original cast of Interscape in 2000.

Suite for Five (1956) is one of Cunningham's most enduring explorations of time and space. Combined with Cage's chance-derived score and Rauschenberg's costumes and design, the work is a classic of the choreographer's repertoire. In Summerspace (1958) each creative element—Morton Feldman's score, Rauschenberg's decor and costumes, and Cunningham's choreography—were conceived and created independently of one another. Despite this separation, the elements meld to give the audience an impression of a balmy summer day. Interscape (2000) explores the transitions between darkness and light, stillness and exertion, and silence and sound. A detailed and beautifully rendered work, Interscape showcases the essence of the artists Cage, Cunningham and Rauschenberg.

CONTENTS
Suite for Five (Total Running Time: 25:58), Summerspace (Total Running Time: 22:05), Interscape (Total Running Time: 47:05)

Split Sides - Merce Cunningham Dance Company MC#980

The Nude in Art

with Tim Marlow

If there is one genre of art that seems to have played a greater role than any other, it is the nude. For at least 30,000 years, humans have represented the naked form in a variety of ways. From the ideal to the real, the Romantic to the Surrealist, there has been almost no end of works devoted to the unclothed human body. This series presented by writer and broadcaster Tim Marlow will examine those artworks, the societies that produced them and the artists that made them.

The Impressionists with Tim Marlow MC#971

Great Artists Two with Tim Marlow MC#972