Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar

Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar presents the work of Spanish mid-20th-century artist, filmmaker, and inventor José Val del Omar (1904–1982) at the Museum of Moving Image in New York. The show is the first major U.S. exhibition devoted to the artist’s multisensory work and runs until October 1, 2023.

Disrupting the conventional relationship between the viewer and the screen, the works in this exhibition foreground historical and contemporary experimental technologies, creating aesthetically rich environments that engage the body and mind. Cinema of Sensations is organized by guest curator Almudena Escobar López with curatorial advisor and Director of the Val del Omar Archive Piluca Baquero, and Gonzalo Sáenz de Buruaga, President of the Val del Omar Archive as consultant.

Óptica Biónica

A modified slide projector moving at variable speeds and featuring a rotating anamorphic lens, with a second set of standard lenses placed on the same optical axis, to create colorful and distorted moving images.

“Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar”
On view March 10–October 1, 2023  Museum of the Moving Image

Photo credit: Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image

• Photo credit: Thanassi Karageorgiou / Museum of the Moving Image

Aguaespejo Granadino (Watermirror of Granada)

One of the three films in José Val del Omar's Elementary Triptych of Spain.

“Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar”
On view March 10–October 1, 2023  Museum of the Moving Image

Image is courtesy of the Val del Omar Archives.

1955 • Image is courtesy of the Val del Omar Archives.

Aguaespejo Granadino (Watermirror of Granada)

One of the three films in José Val del Omar's Elementary Triptych of Spain.

“Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar”
On view March 10–October 1, 2023  Museum of the Moving Image

Image is courtesy of the Val del Omar Archives.

1955 • Image is courtesy of the Val del Omar Archives.

Diakinas (slides)

Part of a series depicting pomegranates. Some of these images were used to create the “Variations on a Pomegranate”, short film by José Val del Omar, courtesy of Val del Omar Archive.

“Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar”
March 10–October 1, 2023 at Museum of the Moving Image

c. 1975 • courtesy of Val del Omar Archive