Bill Brand

Bill Brand

  • Birthday: 1949-03-27
  • Place of birth: Rochester, New York, USA
  • Also know as: BB

Biography

Bill Brand is a multi-disciplinary artist whose films, public artwork, installations, paintings and works-on-paper have exhibited worldwide in museums, galleries microcinemas and on television. His 1980 Masstransiscope, an animated mural installed in the New York City subway, is in the MTA Arts and Design permanent collection. Bill Brand’s artwork has been featured at Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Anthology Film Archive and Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art. He is represented by Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre, Paris and Court Tree Gallery, Brooklyn. His films have been presented at major film festivals including the Berlin Film Festival, New Directors/ New Films Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Rotterdam Film Festival. His films are discussed in histories of cinema including the books Experimental Filmmaking: Break the Machine (2015) by Kathryn Ramey; Results You Can’t Refuse: Celebrating 30 Years of BB Optics, (2006) edited by Andrew Lampert, Documentary, A History of the Non-Fiction Film, (1992) by Erik Barnouw; and Allegories of Cinema, (1990) by David James. Brand’s work has also been written about in news and journal articles by Janet Maslin, Jonas Mekas, J. Hoberman, B. Ruby Rich, Ian Christie, Noel Carroll and Randy Kennedy among others. Bill Brand is Professor Emeritus at Hampshire College and teaches Film Preservation at New York University's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation graduate program. He is co-owner of BB Optics, Inc., a company that specializes in archival film preservation and post-production services. Bill Brand founded the showcase and workshop Chicago Filmmakers in 1973, and served on the Board of Directors of the Collective for Living Cinema until 1991 in New York City. He co-founded Parabola Arts in 1981 and is currently an artistic director. He served on the board of trustees for The Flaherty (2008-15) and is an advisor to the Orphan Film Symposium and Mono No Aware. Bill Brand lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Katy Martin.

Filmography

Split Decision

1979

As Bar Crowd

Production

Always Open Never Closed

1971

As Director

Chuck's Will's Widow

1982

As Director

Coalfields

1984

As Director

Cartoons: Still at Work

1975

As Director

Zip-Tone-Cat-Tune

1972

As Director

Masstransiscope

1980

As Director

Cartoons: Before the Fact

1974

As Director

Demolition of a Wall

1973

As Director

Demolition of a Wall

1973

As Editor

Rate of Change

1972

As Director

Rate of Change

1972

As Editor

Moment

1972

As Director

Moment

1972

As Editor

Huevos a la mexicana

2018

As Director

August Garden

2019

As Director

Angular Momentum

1973

As Director

Circles of Confusion

1974

As Director

Split Decision

1979

As Director

Susie's Ghost

2011

As Director

Skinside Out

2002

As Director

Swan’s Island

2005

As Director

Cartoons: It Dawn Down

1974

As Director

Cartoons: An Angry Dog

1974

As Director

Interior Outpost

2003

As Director

Home Less Home

1991

As Director

Sound Strip/Film Strip

1972

As Director

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