Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists

Through Jan 19

Book ticketsBecome a Member
All

5 / 10

Previous Next

Ed Owens

5

Edward Owens, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, 1968–70

Large projected close-up of a woman's face displayed on a dark gallery wall with empty benches.
Large projected close-up of a woman's face displayed on a dark gallery wall with empty benches.

Installation view of Sixties Surreal (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 24, 2025–January 19, 2026). Edward Owens, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, 1968–70. Artwork © The New American Cinema Group, Inc./The Film-Makers' Cooperative. Photograph by Ron Amstutz, digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art

Edward Owens was only twenty-one years old when he completed Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, using his family and friends as actors. This film is a lyrical, layered portrait of the artist's mother and aunt that combines staged and documentary footage to create complementary visions of reality and fantasy. Owens grew up on Chicago's South Side and studied film on scholarship at the Art Institute of Chicago. With the encouragement of Gregory Markopoulos, then one of the major figures of American experimental cinema, Owens moved to New York at eighteen and became a part of the queer, avant-garde community in Greenwich Village. Owens produced only a few films—Private Imaginings would be his last.

Artists

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Frank WANG Yefeng, The Levitating Perils #2

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.