Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Film No. 12: Heaven and Earth Magic Feature animates cutouts from nineteenth-century books and department store catalogs—Victoriana that carried an air of nostalgia not only for Smith but also for Surrealists like Max Ernst. He relied on stop motion animation to activate these cutouts, resulting in a new and experimental approach to imagery and storytelling that was dreamlike and spiritual. The film depicts a woman’s dental procedure, her subsequent ascension to heaven, and finally her return to earth. By combining disparate influences—the Kabbalah and his own epilepsy research at the Montreal Neurological Institute—Smith portrays the kingdom of heaven as a mix of Israel and Montreal.

Smith realized Film No. 12 only in part; he intended the sixty-six minutes to constitute the opening sequences of a substantially longer work. At times, Smith modified the film when it was projected by adding framing slides and colored projection gels. Smith’s use of a Rubin’s vase—a vase with negative spaces that form the illusion of two facing profiles—in Film No. 12 was the inspiration for the architectural form near the center of the exhibition.