Prof. Edin Velez's New Experimental Documentary Premieres at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight

Acclaimed video artist Edin Velez’s latest film State of Rest and Motion will have its world premiere in the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight. It will screen on Friday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. as part of the Presence of Place program at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. Velez is director of the Video Production Program at Rutgers University-Newark.

An experimental film that uses a variety of digital visual techniques folded into a symphonic mix of ambient sound, State of Rest and Motion is a love letter to the wondrous humanity and diversity of New York, told through hyperrealistic video portraits captured on the city subway over five years.      

This is the latest installment in an ongoing project comprised of painterly panoramic and portrait photographs and video installations that meditate on humanity, loneliness and community. Velez, a Puerto Rican living and working in Brooklyn, N.Y., has been filming and photographing subway riders since the 1980s, when he became transfixed by the vertical cascade of humanity coming down the Fifth Avenue E station escalator. Since then, he has been recording the amazing human landscape flowing through New York City’s arteries in a series of video installations and photographs. His large format Giclée photographic prints of subway riders have been exhibited at Stux Gallery and Nurture Art Gallery, among others. 

Through rich imagery and an acute sense of visual metaphor, Velez has consistently expanded the paradigms of video art, since pioneering the genre in downtown New York City in the early 1970s. Velez has been awarded both Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, as well as the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award for Excellence in Film and Video. His works have been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, Documenta 8, Sao Paolo Biennial, The Tate Gallery, and the Louvre Museum, among others. Four of his works have been included in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection.  

For more information:  edinvelez@gmail.com, www.edinvelez.com 

Information and tickets: https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/2825?locale=en