Stan Vanderbeek Archive

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Stan Vanderbeek Archive

Stan VanDerBeek (1927-1984) was an experimental filmmaker and intermedia pioneer.

05/08/2026

Now on view

Stan VanDerBeek: Micro Kosmos
May 7–June 20, 2026
Level Two

Magenta Plains is pleased to present Micro Kosmos, an exhibition organized around Stan VanDerBeek’s interrelated filmmaking and printmaking practice.

This select group of works focuses on VanDerBeek’s involvement with early computers as a new
means of generating imagery. In his engagements with the computer VanDerBeek saw a “future”
developing and changing at a rate so fast that he posited human intelligence may struggle to fully
grasp its consequences.

Through collaborations with Bell Labs engineer Ken Knowlton and others, he made a series of films entitled POEMFIELDS (1962-1971) that explored the increasing potential of such a complex machine during its nascent development.

Poemfield No. 1 (Blue version) (1967), is a 16mm silent film where powerful sequences of words emerge from mosaics of geometric forms, move around the frame, and eventually disperse. The graphics were produced through a pioneering computer animation language called BEFLIX (short for Bell Labs Flicks) that manipulated a pixel grid with eight shades of gray on an IBM 7090 computer.

The combination of text, image, movement, and color exemplifies the multilayered, moving image
experience for which VanDerBeek is best known.

Full press release on magentaplains.com

Images:

1. Stan VanDerBeek, Moveable Mandala, 1976, 9 Color silkscreens. Computer graphics from Poemfield series.

2. Stan VanDerBeek, Poemfield No. 1 (Blue Version), 1967, 16mm film, color, silent, 4:41 mins. Realized with Ken Knowlton (Detail)

3. Excerpt from press release for VanDerBeek’s 1977 exhibition “Machine Art” presented at University Maryland Baltimore County

09/13/2025

Ephemera from the Stan VanDerBeek Archive currently for sale with in booth J4

1. The Future of The Image (Mona Lisa), Screenprint on newspaper, 1975

2. University of Illinois Lecture and Screening Poster, 1969

3. “Culture:Intercom” and Expanded Cinema, 1966

4. Man Movies Metaphor Program, The American Film Institute Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, 1971

Open today 11-7 and tomorrow 12-6 !

Proceeds help support Soft Network’s programs for legacy stewards including their current Archive-in-Residence and AFELL.

03/14/2025

Nice write up by on Externalized Frieze Booth featuring early works on paper by Stan VanDerBeek.

10/11/2024

Opening 10/13! Stan VanDerBeek’s MOVIE MURAL is featured in UNDERGROUND at the Eye Film Museum.

From the press release:

This autumn, Eye Filmmuseum highlights the American avant-garde cinema of the 1960s. The exhibition and film programme feature both iconic and lesser-known works, showcasing the era’s vibrant experimental spirit.

In this exhibition, Eye showcases the diversity that is such a feature of this era of transdisciplinary film experiments: from independent, unconventional films for cinemas, some self-operated, to expanded experiments such as Andy Warhol’s eight-hour Empire (1964) or Stan VanDerBeek’s imposing 11-channel installation Movie Mural (1965-1968). The latter to be screened in the Netherlands for the first time.

Highlights include films by pivotal avant-garde figures such as Jonas Mekas, Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, as well as contributions from prominent visual artists like Bruce Conner, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol. This exploration of cinematic innovation is set against the backdrop of a changing society.

Install photos by

09/28/2024

Drawing on the Buffalo AKG’s leading collection of dazzling Op art, Electric Op brings together more than one hundred artworks by nearly ninety artists to trace the six-decade relationship between geometric abstraction and electronic art and culture. Dynamic paintings, sculptures, and prints are placed into dialogue with analog videos and computer-generated images and experiences, demonstrating how Op became “Electric” and heralded the rise of the Information Age.

Opening September 27, 2024, at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

09/24/2024

Opening Thursday

This exhibition is curated by former Buffalo AKG Art Museum Curator Tina Rivers Ryan and is co-organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and the Musée d’arts de Nantes, where it will be on view from April 4 to September 1, 2025.

From the press release:

In the 1960s, electronic media began reformatting the nature of images and how we see. Unlike static paintings or sculptures, video and digital images are dynamic and interactive, made of abstract patterns of information that are manipulated, stored, and shared as electronic signals or numerical bits of data.
At the very same moment, an emerging movement called “Op” (short for “Optical”) took art and popular culture by storm. Op artists use abstract patterns to create optical illusions that are dynamic and interactive, much like the electronic images of the time. Could it be more than coincidental that the curves of Op art resemble electronic video signals, or that its grids suggest pixilated digital pictures? In fact, Op art emerged at the same time as video and digital art, and many Op artists would turn to using these technologies, just as many pioneering video and digital artists turned to Op art for inspiration.

08/12/2024

For all those who missed the recent NYC exhibition: Check out for a new video walk through of “Transmissions” with excerpts from the excellent press release by read by

All images are installation views from the recent show.

05/10/2024

Poemfield No. 1, 3 and 5 (1967-1968) screening 5/10 and 5/11!

5 PM at Independent Art Fair in the 6th Floor Skybox

In partnership with Independent, The Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) will hold a rotating showcase presentation of film works from their archive as well as a series of media works from participating exhibitors.

We are pleased to announce the inclusion of Stan VanDerBeek’s Poemfields in this series.

VanDerBeek helped realize the Poemfield series with physicist Ken Knowlton at MIT’s Bell Labs from
1966-71. “Mr. Knowlton wrote an early animation program that enabled Mr. VanDerBeek to create fields, patterns and words in moving, glowing dots of color - although the process involved quite a bit of analog work as well (and the results often evoke fast-moving cross-stitch embroidery). The films captivate, flooding the mind, eye and ear with sometimes psychedelic color; wordplay; antiwar sentiments; and interesting audio, including jazz and the music of John Cage.”
- Roberta Smith, New York Times, 2015

All images ©️Estate of Stan VanDerBeek

05/03/2024

Saturday 5/4, 4-6PM

05/02/2024

Great article in on soon to close exhibition “Vera B. Williams / STORIES
Eight Decades of Politics and Picture Making”

Among her own incredible art and activism Williams helped found “The Land” in Stony Point, NY where Stan and Johanna VanDerBeek raised their kids Max and August and where Stan’s “Movie-Drome” was first realized (and still stands!).

We would not have VanDerBeek’s films without Vera and Paul Williams. The earnestness, democratic ethos, skill and heart that came from this generation of artists is expansive and inspiring.

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