Do Not Disturb

The essential principles of design are expounded in surrealistic terms. Abstract means Balanchine’s story ballets, “you have boy dancer and girl dancer”.

Two boys and two girls develop these notions of expressive symbolism formulating the main thesis of Klee’s Pedagogical Sketchbook. This is an approach to understanding the conception of art as genuine activity. The film represents study and contemplation as preparatory to actual involvement, the metaphor is a romantic encounter.

Pinups, silhouettes, the abstract of an eye. a red comb through hair, wine in a glass, Wesselmann’s cigarettes, the surrealist Versailles (girl in doorway), Hollywood’s spirit (double exposure), Richter’s optics, Moholy-Nagy’s city views, Welles’ pleasure dome, Hitchcock’s hands and doors, Mallarmé’s “l’absente de tous bouquets”, needle on record, fingers on keys, dancing, Bergman’s photo composite, Rauschenberg’s Mud Muse, Char’s “battlemented buoy” and rose, anybody’s bare trees, a bit of paper blown by the wind, a bit of film and scissors.