If you happen to be looking for a textbook example of film as collaborative art, a special feature on the DVD of The Lure might be one of the best. The movie itself is a sort of musical/horror hybrid. It involves a pair of mermaids (not the cute kind) who come ashore...
Vaginal Davis is one of the better examples of somebody who mixes life with art. Her activities include performing, curating, composing, painting and writing. From the late 1970s to early aughts she manifested a series of bands, performances, publications, clubs and...
With all of the recent hysteria about immigration, it seemed like a good time to explore the original American immigrants. There is quite a rich history of movies about settlers (a word that is still used in some parts of the world) doing battle with people who were...
Life happens fast. Yesterday’s dystopian fiction is today’s reality. American history now includes a woman in the 21st century being arrested and found guilty by a jury for laughing at somebody. Most places that have an awareness of despots also have some pearls of...
One of the best ways to gauge how the mainstream views artists is by looking at the movies. Before people associated artists with money, artists were an exotic species. If an artist had any degree of success, they were a newspaper illustrator, or had a job with an ad...
Trying to actually define The Situationists is a slippery business. The more people who weigh in on what they were about, the more confusing it becomes. As an official art movement, Situationism existed from 1957 to 1972. They are considered a missing link between...
Yves Klein is having a moment. If one goes to the news section of the Yves Klein Archives, one will notice that there has recently been a discernible uptick in the number of recent exhibitions of his work. Given that he died in 1962—at an unexpectedly young age—this...
“Scientists are saying that the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.” So says Krysta Now in the underrated film Southland Tales. It’s hard to imagine that film getting made for theatrical distribution today. On the other hand, it...
You’re sitting at an art fair (on what you hope is a chair) while your spouse has another look around. They handed you a magazine before they left, and you’re already back here. You can afford anything in the place, but everything was covered in hold stickers when the...
This is a golden age for people who like to watch movies at home. Films considered obscure or lost are turning up on YouTube, in deluxe boxed sets, and at museum screenings. Digital projection is causing DVD bootlegs of museum screenings to look as crisp as commercial...
There was a recent article about the waning attendance at churches that featured a striking drop quote from a lad who went to a Catholic church for the first time. The only reference point he had for all of the standing up, sitting down, repeating or responding to the...
One of my favorite photo monographs by Kahn & Selesnick is an accordion-folded book that stretches out to 19 feet when it is fully unfurled. There is a narrative involving an Edwardian moon mission that is rescued by the Apollo astronauts. A version of these...
When a sculpture takes on the character of a national monument, it is easy for the name of the artist who made it to get lost. Making a documentary of recognizable landmarks of the flatter parts of the United States? Don’t forget that row of old Cadillacs half buried...
According to his Wikipedia entry, this is Michael Peppiatt’s eighth book about Francis Bacon. If all of his Bacon books were packaged like a deluxe DVD, this would be the really good feature length documentary about the “making of.” He certainly deserves to tell his...
Long films aren’t new. As early as 1914, there was a film (The Photo-Drama of Creation) that ran eight hours. Wikipedia lists at least five films from that decade, which ran at least six hours. In 1971 Jacques Rivette made a famous 13-hour film (Out: One) that had one...
Agnes Varda is the sort of filmmaker that is always worth paying attention to. According to many film historians, her 1954 film La Pointe Courte was the first French New Wave film. A peek at YouTube reveals a 200-video playlist assembled by obsessed fans. (She gives...
The cliché of the naughty schoolgirl is so ingrained in Western culture that it’s hard to imagine a time before they existed. You can read Japanese Anime about them while wearing a professionally manufactured naughty schoolgirl costume. You can mix a Naughty...
Given the current narrative of Los Angeles art (dueling contemporary museums on Grand Street, hangar-sized prestige galleries in East LA, art openings timed to coincide with Oscars) it is surprising to remember that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is only 50...
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