Center for Visual Music

Jordan Belson (1926-2011)

CVM's Research Site - originally created with Belson in 2007 *

Contains News, Bibliography, Biographies, Filmography, Film Notes and more

Screenings and Exhibitions, below

Biographies: Keefer 2008 and Moritz 1997

Retrospective Program and Tour

Online excerpts of selected films, streaming through Vimeo

DVD information - Belson films on two DVDs from CVM (squarespace shop)

NOTE: Bibliography includes some Vortex resources

* original name approved by Jordan was "Official Belson Research Site"

Image above (c) Center for Visual Music

‘Jordan Belson is one of the greatest artists of visual music. Belson creates lush vibrant experiences of exquisite color and dynamic abstract phenomena evoking sacred celestial experiences.’ - Film historian William Moritz

 

 

DVD : A compilation DVD from CVM (2017) includes three rare Belson films: Mandala, Chakra and Meditation. Trailer for Mandala. Full info - ORDER HERE
Still available, Jordan Belson: 5 Essential Films DVD at our Squarespace shop

 

News - Seminars

CVM's virtual Visual Music Master classes and Seminars repeat in 2025, including "Jordan Belson, Vortex Concerts and the Origins of Expanded Cinema." Learn the real story of the legendary 1950s Vortex Concerts (most of what's online is incorrect), their impact on Belson's work, and explore key moments in the beginnings of Expanded Cinema from the 1920s-60s. Five weekly zoom sessions with illustrated talks, films, rare material from CVM's archive and discussions. Host is curator/film historian Cindy Keefer, who worked with Belson restoring and exhibiting his films, published on Vortex, and produced his last film Epilogue plus DVD and VHS releases. Ms. Keefer interviewed Belson extensively during her years working with him, for her planned Vortex book and other projects. $200 fee (total for 5 sessions), limited enrollment. Next sessions occur Fall 2025, please write for more information.

Our seminar "Oskar Fischinger and Visual Music" repeats in June 2025..

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BELSON'S WISHES: Four months before his death, Jordan signed a document expressing some of his wishes: "I do not want any of my films to be put online. I also do not want any of my film material mixed into other people's performances or remixes." (May 1, 2011 signed document, to be posted here soon). Some shots from one of his films had recently been incorporated into a performance project without his permission, and he was upset.

CVM continues to honor Jordan's wishes including screening his films with his original soundtracks. He denied all requests to change his music or soundtracks as long as we worked with him, over many years until his death, and was quite opposed to this idea. He was upset when shown examples of online by others who added their new music to his films. We also honor his long time wishes to not screen a few of his films publicly, including Raga and Cosmos, and importantly, not to place full films online (his contemporary Bruce Conner also did not believe in this practice). With Belson's support, we have screened his films with pristine copies in major museums worldwide, in proper theatres and viewing environments, plus at archives, festivals, cinematheques and universities. Jordan was also always opposed to those screening older, faded and scratched copies, hence our preservation projects for so many of his films, resulting in beautiful new 16mm prints, and then digital transfers from the new preservation material.

Several shots from his films appear in the current Netflix series, Encounters (see Episode 3), about extraterrestrial encounters. We licensed a few shots from restored material.

CVM has restored and digitized numerous Belson films since 2003. We recently restored and reformatted his Mysterious Journey (1999), excerpt on our Belson Vimeo channel

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2025 -  screenings and museum exhibitions

Upcoming: Two restored films, Allures and Meditation, will be part of the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, details soon. Restored with support from the NFPF.

Upcoming: Meditation in France, details soon. Restored by CVM.

Cosmic Cinema: Jordan Belson and the Vortex Concerts. A talk by curator/archivist Cindy Keefer, with screening of selected restored Belson films (digital). March 25, e-Flux Screening Room, Brooklyn, NY. Accompanying essay by Keefer on Belson and Fischinger, at e-Flux Film Notes.

Mandala screened at Potsdam Filmmuseum, Germany, April 5. Restored by CVM.

Samadhi screened February 20 at e-flux Screening Room, Brooklyn, as part of Notes for a Séance: Curating the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale.

2024 -  screenings and museum exhibitions

Samadhi screened in November 30 in Seoul at the Seoul Mediacity pre-Biennale screening, Seoul Museum of Art.

Samadhi screened in November at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, in a program about Color and Film, along with other films from CVM from Fischinger and Bute.

Films Sacred and Profane: Jordan Belson Retrospective screened in February in Lausanne, featuring many films restored by CVM. This is a program which began in the 2000's, co-curated with Belson, and screened worldwide since then at museums, archives, festivals and universities per his wishes.

 

2023 -  screenings and museum exhibitions

Seance screened July 7, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A three night series, "Short Films for Short Nights."

Samadhi screened in Spain on June 17, at Vilaseco, Chantada Lugo. Music of the Spheres screened in April (restored by CVM).

Samadhi screened at Postdam Filmmuseum in Germany in April (also with a restored John Cage film from CVM).

Upcoming screenings are updated often at CVM's Screening & Events page.

2022 -  screenings and museum exhibitions

Chakra was included in a group show Systems of Belief at Halle für Kunst, Graz, Austria. September 24 through December 18. Image above courtesy Halle für Kunst.

Allures  was installed in a group show Salon Solaire at sun.works Gallery, Zurich, June-July.  

Allures (16mm preservation print) and Mandala screened at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, in CVM's new Color Rhythms program. November.

Mandala screened at the Hiroshima Animation Festival, in a special Visual Music screening, August (along with a Fischinger film from CVM).

Mandala screened at ACMI, Melbourne, in CVM's Oskar's Legacy: Filmmakers Influenced by Fischinger program, July 5. Details.

2021 - recent screenings

Allures and Mandala screened at the Tokyo Museum of Photographic Art, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions, in a new program from CVM: Oskar Fischinger, early Motion Graphics and Visual Music. 3 screenings in February.

 

2020 museum exhibitions with films

Several films including Fountain of Dreams (film still below) and Allures were included in a group exhibition, Soundmuseum at Daelim's D Museum, Seoul. May-December, 2020. Part of a special CVM Visual Music exhibition with 11 films, including films by Fischinger and Bute.

Fall - Music of the Spheres was on view in The Botanical Mind exhibition, at Camden Arts Centre, London. An accompanying online exhibition is here.. See the As Within section.

 

 

2020 - screenings

October - Mandala screened at ANIFILM, Czech Republic, in a new compilation program from CVM, Oskar's Legacy.

January - Allures and Momentum, 16mm restored prints from CVM, screened at Museum of the Moving Image, New York

 

2019

December - 2 Belson films from CVM, including a 16mm preservation print of Allures plus Samadhi (digital), screened at Spoutnik Cinema, Geneva. Accompanying the exhibition "By repetition" at Bâtiment d’art contemporain.

May - 4 Belson films from CVM, including 3 restored 16mm prints, screened at Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY.

2018

October - one film screened at Castle di Rocco Sinibalda, a medieval castle near Rome, in two CVM Visual Music programs.

October - Bop Scotch screened at Sonoma Film Institute (California) in CVM's program Music for the Eyes: Visual Music Films from CVM:

August - Several Belson films (Allures, Mandala) screened in programs at CVM's summer Visual Music Symposium in Sonoma County, CA

May - Allures screened in Visual Music Films from the CVM Archive program at ArtsBlock, UCR, Riverside, CA

 

2017

CVM released a compilation DVD with 3 rare Belson films, Chakra, Mandala and Meditation, Visual Music 1947-86 from CVM Archive. Order here: CVM shop

Belson Retrospective program screened in Berkeley (BAM, Feb 7), London (BFI Southbank, Feb 28) and Centre Pompidou, Paris March 3 (see CVM Screenings page for details).

February - May, 2017 - Allures was part of the Hippie Modernism exhibition at Berkeley Art Museum. Digital, looped in a small room downstairs with other films.

2016

September - December, 2016 - Belson's Samadhi plus some artwork were a part of the São Paulo Bienal, Brazil.

November - several Belson films screened in a CVM salon in Los Angeles, also at other CVM Salons at Horse Hospital, London and Oxford University.

October - three Belson films screened at Whitney Museum, NY, in the screening series accompanying Dreamlands exhibition

October - Samadhi screened in the BFI's London Film Festival

April 30 - July - Bop Scotch screened in the Syncopated Cinema series at the new Len Lye Centre, New Zealand, various dates

May 9 - Music of the Spheres (original long version), Chakra and LSD, in new preserved 16mm prints, screened at the International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany (with Fischinger, Cage and other films) in the Archives section, a Center for Visual Music presentation.

Belson films (digital,installations) were featured in two recent museum exhibitions, Allures (new HD transfer) in Hippie Modernism at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Samadhi in Cosa Mentale at Centre Pompidou Metz (closed March 2016). Both opened October 2015, see our Belson distribution page. The Jordan Belson Retrospective Film Program also screened at Walker on October 24. Hippie Modernism will travel to Berkeley Art Museum in February 2017.

Four of Belson's pastels were in an exhibition in New York at 80WSE Gallery, in Language of the Birds: Occult and Art, through February 13, 2016.

February 5 - Re-Entry (video) screened at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, in a program curated by Sheldon Renan

More screenings and exhibitions below.

 

CVM received a grant to preserve Mandala. Thanks to the National Film Preservation Foundation.

 

 

CVM is pleased to announce an original advertising poster from Vortex V (1959) has been donated to CVM for fundraising purposes. We thank the Estate of Jordan Belson for this generous donation. Proceeds will benefit the Belson preservation and digitization project at CVM. A rare original advertising poster (1959) from Jordan Belson and Henry Jacobs' experimental concert series at Morrison Planetarium, San Francisco. 11 x 28 inches, on posterboard heavy stock. Light wear left side, some light staining upper left. An extremely rare item from the legendary events. Vortex original items rarely enter the market. Inquire.

 

 

 

 

CVM gratefully thanks those who have contributed to the digitization and preservation of Belson's films: Scott Snibbe, Scott and Isabel Draves (plus a matching gift from Google), Mary and Brad Glanden, Stephen Fisher, Michael Robinson (PA), Suzanne Perkins & Bertram Gordon, Mark Lamb, Marcos Ortega Miranda, John Teton, Stephen Fisher, David McConville, Stephen Beck, Stuart Heaney, Joshua Seaver.

 

Screenings, 2015

CVM's Retrospective film program at Walker Art Center, October

Chakra and Allures in a program at Barbican Centre, London, curated by CVM director Cindy Keefer for Barbican

Allures in "The Real Zone :: cinema in cybernetic space" screening at CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania

 

Recent screenings, 2014

The never-released film LSD (c. 1962) screened at MoMA New York in November 2014, as part of their annual Festival of Preservation. Presented by CVM with several other films from CVM's archive (Oskar Fischinger, John Cage).

Belson films from CVM screen in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Film Festivals in August; and at BFI Southbank, London in November in Jet-Propelled Cinema: How Psychedelia Infected Hollywood Sci-Fi

 

CVM's new program of New Restorations and Discoveries (includes LSD, a presentation reel from Vortex V, and the unfinished Quartet, c. 1983 ) recently screened at Bard College, New York, with newly restored 16mm prints. Image above, still from Quartet. This program previously screened at Hammer Museum/UCLA and Tate Modern in 2013.

 

2013 News

Installation view, Séance at Raven Row, (c) CVM

EXHIBITION: Three films by Belson (Séance, World and Chakra) were in Reflections from Damaged Life: an exhibition on Psychedelia exhibition at Raven Row, London, curated by Lars Bang Larsen. September-December. Extensive reviews in artforum, Frieze, CLOSE-UP, more. (NOTE: CLOSE-UP contains some errata on Vortex)

Three September Belson events in the UK! Tate Modern, Arnolfini Centre and Raven Row. See CVM's Events page and the Belson Retrospective page, At Tate Modern, the Premiere of new preservation prints of LSD and a Vortex V presentation reel (1959). Program also included the unfinished Quartet (c. 1983). This new program from CVM also screened in December at UCLA Film and Television Archive's Billy Wilder Theatre, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

New HD transfers and preservation projects underway; new 16mm preserved print of LSD

Spring, 2013: Re-entry installed in group exhibition at HKW, Berlin

 

2012 News

Fall 2012 dates for screenings of the Retrospective program in New York, Boston, Toronto and other cities, details here.

October - CVM screened "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" at the Whitney Museum, New York.

April - Mandala and Caravan screened at LA County Museum of Art in CVM's new program "Color and Form: California Modernist Animation and Abstraction"

CVM received a preservation grant for the film LSD, and several reels of Belson's experiments, some from the Vortex Concerts c. 1959.

JANUARY: Belson's film Allures (1961) was been added to the National Film Registry List (Library of Congress), for films deemed to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.

2011 Screenings and News

May - CVM screened "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" at Tate Modern, London and also at EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. It screened in March at LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.

RIP Filmmaker/artist Jordan Belson died peacefully early Tuesday morning, September 6, 2011 at his home in San Francisco, of heart failure. He was 85. In lieu of flowers, Belson's long-time partner Catherine Heinrich requested that donations be made to Center for Visual Music's preservation and digitization work to continue preserving the legacy of Jordan Belson. A Memorial screening occured October 19 at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, of CVM's Program Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane, which included an unreleased film by Belson called Quartet.

Before his death, Belson signed a statement asking people not to put his films online, as it does not do justice to his work. He was quite concerned with proper display conditions, in dark environments. He very much disliked seeing his films on YouTube. However, we have permission to put some short high resolution excerpts online.

Jordan Belson, Experimental Filmmaker, Dies at 85. New York Times obit by Margalit Fox, Movies section, Sept 10.

Please see the Belson bios below. We've posted obits and news items on his death, at the bottom of the Belson Bibliography page.

Gene Youngblood published a very short remembrance of Belson in Millenium Film Journal.

 

2010 Exhibitions and Screenings

October - a sold out screening of our Retrospective "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

April - screening of our Retrospective "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" at Northwest Film Forum, Seattle.

February - Mandala included in a 3 part series at SFMoMA, curated by Scott MacDonald.

2009 Exhibitions and Screenings

Guggenheim Museum, New York. A special film series curated by Cindy Keefer, from October 2009 to February 2010, "Non-Objective Films, 1920s-50s" included a Belson film. Selected Fridays, 16mm prints, in the Education Department screening room. This program also screened at the Guggenheim's Kandinsky symposium in January.

See This Sound: Promises in Sound and Vision, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz. Belson's Samadhi was installed in a black box room throughout the exhibition, August 2009 - January 2010. Ms. Keefer also gave an accompanying talk on Belson, Vortex Concerts and early Expanded Cinema experiments.

April - "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" screened at the European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck, Germany.

April - Tate Modern's Expanded Cinema Symposium, London. Ms. Keefer, CVM's director, presented "Raumlichtkunst to Vortex: Early Expanded Cinema Experiments of Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson (1926-1959), plus a separate film program including some Belson films.

Guggenheim Museum, New York. "The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989" group exhibition included Belson's Samadhi. January-April.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami. "Abstract Cinema and Technology" group exhibition included Belson's Allures. March-May.

2008 Exhibitions and Screenings

Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY. "Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane" Retrospective screened, along with 4 other programs from CVM (Fischinger, Bute, Essential Visual Music and more)

MORE TO BE ADDED SOON including earlier years