Charles Atlas

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Please join us for a screening of works by Charles Atlas at The Cinematheque on the occasion of Atlas' exhibition *Hail the New Puritan*.

Since his groundbreaking work as filmmaker-in-residence at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, New York-based film and video artist Charles Atlas has been one of the leading interpreters of performance for camera, known for his relentlessly innovative engagements with genre, technology and style. 

This program features three early works produced by Atlas in collaboration with dancers, each reflecting the exuberant spirit, canny camerawork and anti-documentary approach that defines this period in his practice. *Blue Studio: Five Segments* uses nascent chroma key technology to multiply the choreography of legendary dance artist Merce Cunningham across a series of outdoor landscapes for New York public television station WNET. *From an Island Summer* follows renowned ​“punk ballerina” Karole Armitage and her dancers along the boardwalk of Coney Island and through the streets of Times Square, capturing the garish magic of a 1980s New York summer. And *Because We Must* continues Atlas’s long-term collaboration with Scottish dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, adapting one of the enfant terrible’s dazzlingly irreverent stageworks for the screen.

*Merce by Merce by Paik Part One: Blue Studio: Five Segments*, 1975–76
16 min.

*From an Island Summer*, 1983–84
13 min. 

*Because We Must*, 1989
52 min. 

### RSVP
Registration for this event is required; tickets are free. Secure your place [here](https://thecinematheque.ca/films/2025/charles-atlas).

Note: Unclaimed tickets for complimentary screenings at The Cinematheque will be released 15 minutes before showtime. Please arrive early to guarantee your seat.

### Accessibility
This event is being held at The Cinematheque; venue accessibility information can be found [here](https://thecinematheque.ca/about/equity-accessibility).

### Biography
Charles Atlas (b. 1949, St. Louis, MO) has lived and worked in New York City since the early 1970s. In 2024, the ICA Boston presented *About Time*, the first U.S. museum survey devoted to Atlas’ work. Other recent solo exhibitions include *The Mathematics of Consciousness*, a 100-foot long video installation commissioned by Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2022); *Charles Atlas: Ominous, Glamorous, Momentous, Ridiculous*, Fondazione ICA Milano, Italy (2021); and *Charles Atlas: The past is here, the futures are coming* and *The Kitchen Follies*, The Kitchen, New York (2018). Atlas’ work is included in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; and De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands. In 2024, Atlas’ archive was acquired by The Getty Research Institute.

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Dance for Camera: Early Works by Charles Atlas

Screening

Please join us to celebrate the opening of CAG's fall 2025 exhibitions: [*Sojourner Truth Parsons: Louise*](/exhibition/sojourner-truth-parsons) and [*Charles Atlas: Hail the New Puritan*](/exhibition/charles-atlas).

All ages welcome. Cash bar.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

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Fall 2025

Opening Reception

Charles Atlas has been a leading figure in film and video for more than fifty years. Known for his relentlessly innovative engagements with genre, technology and form, the New York-based artist has pushed at the boundaries of moving images from the earliest moments of his career, when he was filmmaker-in-residence at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In the decades since, Atlas has honed an expansive practice that bridges moving images, installation, theatre, and performance, achieving widespread acclaim for his pioneering films and videos and his landmark collaborations with artists such as Yvonne Rainer, Marina Abramović and Ahnoni and the Johnsons. 

At the Contemporary Art Gallery, Atlas presents *Hail the New Puritan* (1985–86), an "anti-documentary" that follows Scottish dancer and choreographer Michael Clark in a highly stylized day-in-the-life as he and his company prepare for a performance. Shot in the thriving queer, punk and post-punk countercultures of 1980s East London — with appearances from figures such as Leigh Bowery and Mark E. Smith of The Fall — *Hail the New Puritan* toes the tenuous boundary between fantasy and reality, capturing a dazzling culture of self-fashioning and world-making, and the potent energies of a rapidly shifting social landscape. 

#### Biography
Charles Atlas (b. 1949, St. Louis, MO) has lived and worked in New York City since the early 1970s. In 2024, the ICA Boston presented *About Time*, the first U.S. museum survey devoted to Atlas’ work. Other recent solo exhibitions include *The Mathematics of Consciousness*, a 100-foot long video installation commissioned by Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2022); *Charles Atlas: Ominous, Glamorous, Momentous, Ridiculous*, Fondazione ICA Milano, Italy (2021); and *Charles Atlas: The past is here, the futures are coming* and *The Kitchen Follies*, The Kitchen, New York (2018). Atlas’ work is included in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; and De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands. In 2024, Atlas’ archive was acquired by The Getty Research Institute.

#### Acknowledgements
*Charles Atlas: Hail the New Puritan* is generously supported by Claudia Beck.

Charles Atlas

Exhibitions

Talks & Events