Live Cinema/Histories in Motion

April 30-July 25, $16, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org

by Shaun Brady

The notion of "history" tackled by the three animated films that will occupy the Art Museum's video gallery over the next few months ranges from the personal to the political to the social. Jennifer Levonian's Take Your Picture With a Puma (pictured) is a gorgeous watercolor dream, finding beauty in the gaudiest of culture clashes. Set in Mexico during the height of tourist season and based on Eric Rohmer's Bakery Girl of Monceau, two people obliquely connect against a backdrop of fast-food wrappers and Lonely Planet absurdities. Martha Colburn's Join the Freedom Force is a frenzied collage of protest, an orgy of angry signs, puppet heads and riot police. As he did in dread, Joshua Mosley imagines a conversation between two historical figures in International, this time assembling sound clips of economist Friedrich Hayek and builder/philanthropist George Brown against a James Benning-like succession of landscapes.

April 30-July 25, $16, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org.