Teo Hernández: A Pomegranate Orchard and the Bitter Well

In only 23 years Teo Hernández, one of the central figures of Paris’s queer avant-garde film scene of the 1970s and ’80s, produced a monumental body of work that reveals how myth and zealous desire are inextricably knit to our everyday lives. Across more than 150 Super 8mm films, encompassing portraiture, urban landscapes, and diaristic cinema, he ceaselessly forged radical alternatives to linear time and perspectival vision, entrancing audiences with a visceral style that affects both body and spirit. Hernández conceived of the moving image as a pulsating expression of life itself.

Hernández used to say that two opposing bloodlines ran through his veins. Born in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, in 1939, he left the country in 1965. After 10 years of extensive travels through Central and North America, Europe, Morocco and India, he settled permanently in Paris in 1975. His first feature films pioneered a staunchly local, Super 8mm avant-garde approach focused on the affectionate exploration of objects and queer bodies as a locus for transcendence. His sprawling œuvre, including thousands of written pages and photographs, was cut short by his death from AIDS-related complications in 1992.

This series, the first monographic presentation of Hernández’s work in the United States, comprises 19 films that trace some of the through-lines of his filmography—from early features inspired by folkloric or mythological iconographies, to the ecstatic variations on autobiography, portraiture, city rambling, and dance he made throughout the 1980s. The series includes the two films he made as part of MétroBarbèsRochechou Art, an informal collective he integrated with Gaël Badaud, Jakobois, and Michel Nedjar, along with a selection of films by Jakobois and Michel Nedjar. Taken together, these selections provide a glimpse into the creative community that accompanied Hernández until the end of his life.

The films of Teo Hernández are preserved by the film collection of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou.

Organized by Carlos Saldaña and Francisco Algarín Navarro, guest curators, and Francisco Valente, Curatorial Associate, Department of Film, MoMA. Special thanks to Philippe-Alain Michaud, Enrico Camporesi, Alexis Constantin, Jonathan Pouthier, Cécile Zoonens in the Film Collection Department of Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou; Michel Nedjar; Mauricio Hernández; and Miguel Armas at Light Cone.

Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Gund through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.