July 16 through September 18, 2005
Sert Gallery (More about the Sert Gallery)

Julie Buck and Karin Segal, after an unknown studio cameraman, 2004. Girl # 4. 12 x 15 in. Image courtesy of the artists. (Test Strip 04)

Girls on Film is about 70 unknown movie stars. Despite appearing in countless films, the anonymous female film studio workers were never meant to be seen by the moviegoing public. The images in this exhibition, from what were known as color-timing control strips, were meant only for use by the processing lab to match color tones in the associated film. But film projectionists have long used female test-strip images as a private source of pin-up girls; they sometimes saved and traded these images, even in tiny 35 mm form. Artists Julie Buck and Karin Segal saved the initial images from discarded film leaders. The heavily scratched and faded images were then enlarged, restored, and edited until these unknown and formerly unseen women resemble publicity snapshots of well-known film stars. Organized by Julie Buck and Karin Segal, artists and film archivists, Harvard Film Archive, and Linda Norden, associate curator of contemporary art. Partial funding for this project was provided by Triage, Allen's Camera, and Colorlab.

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