Bill Morrison: Cycles and Loops

Bill Morrison is one of the most accomplished filmmakers working today whose practice rescues lesser known and forgotten histories while investigating the fragile existence of celluloid materials. His extensive filmography sources rare archival footage as well as 35mm nitrate film in various states of decomposition. Morrison’s work lies between the documentary nature of found footage and the chaotic intervention of nitrate film, with its inclination for entropy. Inhabiting the space between project and destiny, Morrison’s films can be described as a profession of faith in the perseverance of that which seems most doomed to perish.

In Cycles & Loops, his first solo exhibition in Texas, Morrison deconstructs his films to create essential abstractions for the gallery space. The repetitive loops presented in the gallery do not have a beginning or end; instead, they allow the viewer to engage intellectually and emotionally with wavering and untethered relics from history. Together, these ephemeral fragments ask us a deeply existential question: how do we preserve what cannot be preserved? In Cycles & Loops, Morrison offers a response and demonstrates the possibilities for rebirth out of the chaos of decay.