Why Not: A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology, 1969
110 min, 16mm, b&w, sound
Written and directed by Arakawa
Narrator: Madeline Gins
Cast: Mary Widow
Music: Toshi Ichiyanagi
For Example, 1971
94 min, 16mm, b&w, sound
Directed by Arakawa
Written by Madeline Gins
Cast: Jonathan Leeds
Narrator: Maurice Blanc
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Arakawa and Madeline Gins created two
experimental feature-length films: Why Not (A Serenade of Eschatological Ecology)
(1969) and For Example (A Critique of Never) (1971). Both films premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art and have been described by film critic and historian Amos Vogel in Film as a Subversive Art as “unquestionably a major work of the American Avant-Garde of the seventies”. The films have been screened at the Sogetsu Art Center (1969), Tokyo, Japan; the Venice Biennale 1978, Venice, Italy; Onnasch Galerie (1971), Cologne, Germany; NTT InterCommunication Center (1998), Tokyo, Japan; Aichi Arts Center (2001), Nagoya, Japan; Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (2011), Yamaguchi, Japan; Park Tower Hall Image Forum Festival 2014, Tokyo, Japan; Forum Lenteng (2016), Jakarta, Indonesia; Toyo University (2017), Tokyo, Japan; Kansai University (2018), Osaka, Japan; among other venues.
