Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Chagall, Braque, Warhol, Rothko, Kandinsky, de Kooning, Motherwell, Nevelson, Pollock, Miro, Duchamp, Calder, Ernst, Richter, Beuys, Giocometti, Klee, and on. Hosted by Orson Welles. Directed by Herbert Kline. It’s great because there are so many of the artists speaking for themselves.
Category Archives: Art
Monologue Under White Light! – A Film by Samira Eskandarfar
A ravishing beauty from Iran! Look at this mysterious and subtle film by director Samira Eskandarfar. Her figures drift through time and space in a stage setting that seems open-ended and universal. The underlying themes and messages are probably far more complex than I can ascertain without a proper understanding of Iranian culture. But the film stands as a mysterious and slightly harrowing glimpse into the progress of attraction, love and communication between individuals. The characters, played by Kazem Sayahi Saharkhiz and Faranak Miri, engage in mundane conversation, offer each other drinks, smoke cigarettes, make eyes at each other, play music on a tape recorder and disappoint each other in all the little ways of a normal life. But they seem symbolic of something greater and perhaps very much to do with the filmmaker’s Iran. There are some amazing artists working with enormous expressive power in Iran. Samira Eskandarfar is one of them.
By the way, the filmmaker is also a painter.
Visit the filmmaker’s web site.
Rockboistwo – Street Art Film by Marvin Tiberious
‘It ain’t about being the best. It’s about being multiple.’ Marvin Tiberious makes the best films about street art that I have seen from anywhere in the world.
Everything is a Remix Part 2
Kirby Ferguson continues his Everything is a Remix series by showing us how many of our most cherished and familiar films combine elements taken from or inspired by other films to create their seemingly unique experiences. Sometimes, shots are reproduced almost exactly. Yet, the movie industry is extremely aggressive in prosecuting or suing anyone who tries to use their material.
Everything is a Remix Part 1
Part 1 of Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix series. The techniques of copy, combining and transforming existing material is common to all artistic creation.
Roland’s Adventures in Wonderland – A Film by Istvan Horkay
Artist Istvan Horkay made this strangely mesmerizing film that combines Alice in Wonderland, the elephant man, 19th century theater, silent film, modern computer graphics, children’s illustration and digital readouts. There are three films going on at the same time in a beautiful triptych.
Visions of the Future – Science Fiction Art of the Second Golden Age
This is an amazing and obsessive immersion in science fiction illustrations from what is known as the Second Golden Age. It’s mainly lots of cool science fiction imagery from the 1970s and 1980s.
Part 2
Parts 3 – 5 after the jump
Salvador Dali on ‘What’s My Line?’
Because he is 100% truthful, he drives the show’s host a little bit crazy.
The Future of Art
How is technology changing the way we make, view and distribute art? Gabriel Shalom made this film by interviewing artists at the Transmediale festival 2011 in Berlin, Germany. It was produced by KS12.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s Life Work Given to Los Angeles Museums
As I was driving yesterday, I was thinking about my latest film work and muddling through half-formed thoughts about how, whether anyone likes it or not, Los Angeles is the center of art in the United States. New York has become too much associated with the 20th century’s industrial approach to art. Los Angeles, it seemed to me inside my comfortable car, is where it’s at.
Well, there you have it.
Enjoy the gift, Los Angeles, because you’ve earned it.
If you want to learn a lot more about Mapplethorpe and an incredible drive for artistic expression, read the National Book Award winning memoir by Patti Smith, Just Kids.
Dreams That Money Can Buy – 1947 Underground Feature Film by Hans Richter
Inspired by a Hans Richter film posted by Dangerous Minds, I went looking for more. I found this extraordinary gem, Dreams that Money Can Buy, which is a low-budget feature film produced and directed by Richter with some of his incredible friends in 1947. They shot the film in a New York loft. It’s essentially an underground experimental film about a guy who gets an apartment and worries about how to pay the rent. When he discovers that he has the power to see into his mind through the reflection of his eye, he seizes upon an idea to create a business selling dreams to people who are unhappy with their lives. So of course the film features seven surrealist dream sequences!
Brilliant! Some of the people involved with this fantastic film were Max Ernst, Paul Bowles, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, John Cage, Fernand Leger, and Man Ray.
You can watch the film in its 8 YouTube parts right here or you can go download it from Archive.org.
Part 2
Parts 3 – 8 after the jump!
Ghosts Before Breakfast – Surrealist Short by Hans Richter
Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds posted about this 1927 film by Hans Richter. Considered one of the first examples of surrealist film, it’s a daydream that uses stop-motion animation to make people and objects do totally irrational and impossible things. Richter was a part of the Dada movement in art which rebelled against ordinary life and assumptions, attempting to expose the meaninglessness behind modern life. Out of Dada came the Surrealist movement. The music for this version is from a new score by Nikolai von Sallwitz.
Thank you Mr. Metzger and Dangerous Minds!
Know No Truth – A Film About a Painter by Joe Martino
This beautiful film by Joe Martino features painter Landon Richmond working and talking about his perspective on the pursuit of one’s art and expression. It’s a very direct and moving film. I agree with every word that comes out of the painter’s mouth. And I like the way he says it without a trace of pretension or irony. He’s interested in facing the darkness in his art and he recommends this fearless approach as a general principal. You have to be able to look directly at anything. Richmond also acknowledges the place that chaos occupies in his work – the willingness to not necessarily understand where it is that you are going but to go nonetheless. I really enjoyed hearing this painter’s words today and will keep them in mind for quite some time.
You can see lots of Landon Richmond’s paintings and a web comic at KnowNoTruth.com.
Maybe One Day Everything Will be Beautiful – by Landon Richmond
Streets Against The War – Street Art Animation From Turkey
Sokak Savasakarsi made this anti-war stop-motion street art piece in several Turkish cities. Unidentified hooded street artists place newspapers with cutout soldiers around the city. Then the soldiers start moving.
BLU Paints a Wall
How to paint a wall in less than a week. By BLU.