Center for Visual Music

Center for Visual Music (CVM) needs your support to move out of Los Angeles to a safer location (continued below).

The recent fires highlight the need to relocate our archives of Oskar Fischinger’s original papers, animation art, our library of books, photographs, Mary Ellen Bute’s animation materials, artwork, our Jordan Belson Collection and much more away from the recurring threats posed by the volatile situation and weather in the L.A. area. We have the world's largest collection of visual music-related resources, and a large library to move! Your contribution will help pay for packing materials, crates for artwork, labor, boxes, trucking, shelving, office renovation and other moving costs, plus the deposit for new office space. We've started to move some archival papers in response to the current fires, but there is much more that must be relocated to ensure future safety.

Help us save and preserve this very special archive, help us move to a better, safer space out of the greater Los Angeles area. We are currently looking at areas 3 hours north of LA, north of Santa Barbara in SLO County wine country, where we can provide greater access to more researchers and visitors, continue to process and manage our extensive Oskar Fischinger archive, continue our digitization projects, and offer more educational opportunities. A better space will also allow us to work with more of the collection that is currently in storage and finish prep for our next Fischinger book. With the right space, we can also hold salons and outdoor screenings.

CVM is an archive devoted to experimental animation, visual music and abstract cinema. CVM has preserved and promoted the films of Oskar Fischinger, Jordan Belson, Mary Ellen Bute, Jules Engel, Charles Dockum and others for twenty years. Our archive includes pre-digital cinema pioneers, early experiments in kinetic art, and light show pioneers including Glenn McKay. Our collections include Fischinger's papers, films and animation artwork, the original research collection of animation historian Dr. William Moritz, preserved films and research material for John and James Whitney, Jordan Belson, Mary Ellen Bute, Jules Engel and others, and extensive photography collections of Hy Hirsh, Bute and McKay.

CVM curates and presents film programs, exhibitions, talks, symposia and public programming at venues internationally. Our collections are used by scholars, students, curators, artists and researchers worldwide. CVM co-published an Oskar Fischinger monograph, and offers virtual Seminars on Fischinger, Belson, Vortex Concerts and Visual Music. You can view some rare films from our collection online at our vimeo channel.

Jules Engel, Accident

Shop our online store with DVDs and books, https://centerforvisualmusic.squarespace.com/

Shop our Winter virtual fundraiser for exclusive artwork, posters, and gifts: https://centerforvisualmusic.squarespace.com/art-film-fundraiser2024

Top image from Fischinger’s Kreise (1933-34). CVM is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

All donors will be thanked on CVM's website and next international newsletter. Donors over $100 will be thanked with their names on a wall scroll in our new office.

Please visit our online resources and artists' sites at www.centerforvisualmusic.org

Visit our Oskar Fischinger site: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger/

Radio Dynamics animation paintings on view, 2017, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco.

Barbara Fischinger (Oskar and Elfriede's daughter) at our Fischinger exhibition in 2012, co-organized with EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam.