ICA Cinematheque: Blow Up

Coinciding with the launch of EP Vol. 1: The Italian Avant-Garde: 1968-1976, Alex Coles has selected a variant of a detective thriller - the detective being replaced by a fashion photographer - for a special screening, connecting film of the period with art, design, architecture and theory.

After Antonioni's intellectual and formalistic works, including The People of the Po Valley (La gente del Po), 1943, Sanitation Department (N.U. [for Nettezza urbana]), 1948, and L'Avventura, 1960, Blow-Up is his first commercially oriented film in the English language, set in the cityscape of 1960s swinging London (with early cameo appearances by Jane Birkin and Jimmy Page). The film interestingly opens with a crazy car drive around the Economist Plaza built by architects Alison + Peter Smithson in 1959-64, which links to Coles' EP book series - a reference to the notion of the 'extended player' music format but also a homage to the Smithsons' Economist Plaza.

Friday 31 May: Culture Now & EP Book Launch - Carlo Caldini & Martino Gamper in conversation with Alex Coles & Catharine Rossi to celebrate the launch of the first volume of EP, The Italian Avant-Garde: 1968-1976.