Jeff Preiss Show at Columbia Runs Through October 30th

GME PRESIDENT JON GARTENBERG WITH MULTIMEDIA ARTIST JEFF PREISS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S CCCP@10 BOOK LAUNCH ON OCTOBER 5th, 2023. SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.

From June 7th to 9th, 2019, the Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) program at Columbia University convened in Wadi Rum, Jordan, at an off-campus desert setting, to mark the tenth year of the program’s founding. As noted in the recently published book The Fifth Review, “the CCCP@10 celebration was hosted in Bedouin campsites, without wi-fi or cellphone reception… it brought together alumni, faculty, students, and critic-collaborators from earlier reviews to hear alumni present and to collectively talk through research-based practices that the program has sought to foster.” Jeff Preiss, multimedia artist and friend of GME, participated in this event at Wadi Rum and brought his 16mm Bolex camera with him. He subsequently digitized and manipulated this footage and presented it as a video installation at the CCCP@10 book and film launch at Avery 400, which opened on October 5th of this month and runs through October 30th. Stills from Preiss’ film were also included as a folded insert in The Fifth Review. GME President Jon Gartenberg and Fine Arts Curator David Deitch were in attendance at the October 5th launch.

Preiss was a student of filmmaker Warren Sonbert, whose films GME exclusively represents. Notably, Preiss made the film TAPE SPLICES FOR WARREN in 1988. This film was digitized in 2019 and featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s Sonbert retrospective earlier this year, in the fifth program “Narrative Strategies through Polyvalent Montage.” Sonbert was a major proponent of montage and Preiss’ resulting work reflects the filmmaker’s influence.

Preiss was in attendance at MoMA’s tribute in May and spoke at length about Sonbert and his impact. Part of that conversation (25:43 - 26:45) can be viewed here: