James Blue Room

James Blue Room at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center will focus on Blue's career with installed video recordings. Video installations include Who Killed Fourth Ward?; a documentary on Blue by local journalist Elmer Ploetz; and selections from The Frontier program, an on-going series of work by individual artists from the Buffalo and Southern Ontario region. The Frontier, which ran from 1979 - 1984, was produced by Lynn Corcoran.

James Blue: A Retrospective was presented by the Burchfield-Penney and Hallwalls from October 13 - October 16, 2005. Known internationally for his ground-breaking documentary films, James Blue (1930-1980) was an artist, an educator, and an advocate of experimentation in the non-fiction form. A professor at the University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study in the early 1970s, Blue influenced a generation of media makers and worked tirelessly to promote the craft of telling true stories with moving images. This retrospective featured screenings of rare prints of Blue’s films and include discussions with some of his colleagues including Gerald O'Grady, PhD.