Film
critic Carrie Rickey has written, "If you were to make a composite
portrait of the artist in the feature film, he (with few exceptions, it
is a he) would look something like this: He is humbly self-employed, yet
haunts the corridors of power seeking patronage. He is penniless, yet
his work is priceless. He is a sexual libertine, yet celibate for long
periods, faithful only to his work. He is ostracized by a culture that
places value on the cash his canvases fetch, but not on the artworks themselves.
He is a madman, yet extraordinarily lucid on matters of art and soul."
Curated by Stuart Horodner, PAINTERS ON FILM both confirms and contradicts
this analysis by bringing together unique features, documentaries and
instructional films. Playful, probing, and provocative, these films bring
viewers into the studios and minds of some of the 20th Century's most
challenging artists, revealing the myriad ways that painters have been
"directors, actors and, of course, subjects." Horodner and guest
artists will introduce each screening and lead post-film discussion.
Stuart Horodner is an independent curator in Portland. On the faculty
of the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University,
he lectures regularly around the country and is a contributor to numerous
arts publications including BOMB, SURFACE, ART ISSUES, SCULPTURE and THE
ORGAN. His most recent exhibition of contemporary painting was "UnforEseen:
Four Painted Predictions" at PICA, featuring works by Dana Schutz,
Hilary Harkness, Steve DiBenedetto, and Henk Pander.
MAY
7 FRI 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM—visiting artist
THE CEDAR BAR
US 2001
DIRECTOR: ALFRED LESLIE Alfred Leslie's (b.1927) rollicking memoir
of the Abstract Expressionists, Clement Greenberg, and New York in the
'50s. "The synopsis, simply put: artists confront an arrogant art
critic during an evening of serious drinking at their favorite hangout.
This tempestuous and often humorous play of ideas is layered and braided
throughout with a delirious montage of scenes from hollywood films, porn
movies, newsreels, television shows, etc., underscoring the action at
times and at others in glorious opposition to it."—ANTHOLOGY
FILM ARCHIVES. "Explosive. . .modern art will never look the same."
—David Sterritt, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR. (84 mins.)
Alfred Leslie will discuss the film.
MAY
13 THUR 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
ALICE NEEL
US 1976-83
DIRECTOR: MICHEL AUDER Two of America's most idiosyncratic realists
are revealed in ALICE NEEL and KITAJ, which follows. Auder's intimate
portrait of Alice Neel (1900–1984) is composed of seven years of
video footage, watching as she paints a cellist practicing, a nude woman
pregnant with twins and the director himself. Neel once said, "A
good portrait of mine has even more than just the accurate features. If
I have any talent in relation to people, apart from planning the whole
canvas, it is my identification with them. I get so identified when I
paint them, when I go home I feel frightful. I have no self—I've
gone into this other person." (58 mins.)
WITH
KITAJ: IN THE PICTURE
UK 1994
DIRECTOR: JAKE AUERBACH Jake Auerbach's rare interview with R.B.
Kitaj (b. 1932) was the first time that the painter agreed to be filmed.
After spending much of his adult life championing figurative art in London,
Kitaj has recently returned to Los Angeles. He discusses work, sex, marriage,
Jewishness and death. "Painting is not my life. My life is my life.
painting is a great idea that I carry from place to place. It is an idea
full of ideas, like a refugee's suitcase, a portable Ark of the Covenant."—R.B.
Kitaj. (41 mins.)
special guest: portland painter stephen hayes
MAY
20 THU 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
US 1939
DIRECTOR: WILLIAM WELLMAN Ronald Colman portrays soldier Dick Heldar,
who returns from combat in the Sudan to become a famous painter. When
he discovers that a war injury will result in blindness, he struggles
against time to finish his masterpiece—an expressionist painting
of "Melancholia,"—whose model is a downtrodden Cockney
woman played by Ida Lupino. Based on Rudyard Kipling's first novel (1891),
the film explores idealism, colonialism and the psychological relationship
between painter and model. (97 mins.)
MAY
27 THU 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
PAINTERS PAINTING:
PICASSO, POLLOCK, BRAKHAGE, ROSS
Ingenious directors catch four legendary painters in the act. In VISITE
À PICASS0 (1949), Paul Haesaerts captured Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
composing images on a sheet of glass. As the Spanish master noted, "When
I paint, my purpose is to show what I have found, not what I am looking
for." In JACKSON POLLOCK (1951), Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg
capture Pollock (1912–1956) working outdoors on a large canvas,
showing off and discussing the dance-like moves of his classic "drip
technique." Stan Brakhage's (1933–2003) hand-painted films
—such as DANTE QUARTET (1987) and LOVE SONG (2001)—take the
improvisational aspects of Pollock and fuse them to a celluloid canvas
to create evocative abstract images in time. The TV painting guru Bob
Ross (1942–1995) creates the "Grandeur of Summer" in the
step-by-step process made famous in his long-running JOY OF PAINTING program
on PBS. His calm instruction is like a lullaby after the speed and bravado
of the previous three.
JUNE
3 THU 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
THE HORSE'S MOUTH
UK 1958
DIRECTOR: RONALD NEAME In arguably the most beloved film about
a painter, Alec Guiness portrays crotchety Gully Jimson, a visionary freeloader
who is broke, in trouble with the law, and has a retrospective at the
National Gallery. He is desperate to paint a mural of Lazarus coming back
from the dead, but his patrons simply want something to match the sofa.
Based on Joyce Cary's novel, the film was adapted by Guiness himself and
features the work of British artist John Bratby. (96 mins.)
JUNE
10 THU 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM—visiting artist
PHILIP GUSTON, A LIFE LIVED
US 1981
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL BLACKWOOD Michael Blackwood documented Philip
Guston (1930–1980) at the end of his life, discussing his brave
shift from doubt-filled Abstract Expressionist to cartoon realist. Guston
claimed, "From 1967–69, I painted like mad. The pictures came
so fast I had to make memos to myself, at a table drinking coffee. I felt
like a movie director. Like opening a Pandora's box, and all these images
came out." (58 mins.)
WITH
FRANCIS BACON, PEINTRE ANGLAIS
SWITZERLAND 1963
DIRECTOR: PIERRE KORALNIK Francis Bacon (1909–1992) said,
"I'm just trying to make images as accurately off my nervous system
as I can," and his screaming figures (many based on Eisenstein's
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN) and portraits of popes and friends are both elegant
and unsettling. Pierre Koralnik captures Bacon working and discussing
his homosexuality and obsession with masculine beauty. (22 mins.)
los angeles-based painter tom knechtel will discuss the films.
JUNE
17 THU 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
DOWNTOWN 81
US 1981/2001
DIRECTOR: EDO BERTOGLIO Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988)
was a 19-year-old graffiti artist, poet, and musician when he starred
in this film about the vibrant downtown scene of the early '80s. Kid Creole
and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, and others provide musical
performances."Gives us a glimpse of the city as it was, suggesting
that there was something revolutionary, even inspiring about those days
of not-so yore."—John Petrakis, CHICAGO TRIBUNE (75 mins.)
followed
by
WILLEM DE KOONING: ARTIST
US 1967
DIRECTOR: ROBERT SNYDER Oneof New York's most charismatic painters,
Synder captures the Dutch-born de Kooning (1904–1997) in the late
'60s, talking about art with friends Franz Kline and Harold Rosenberg
and providing a perspective on the social and cultural environment that
shaped him. (32 mins.)
JUNE
24 THUR 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
AGNES MARTIN: WITH MY BACK TO THE WORLD
US 2002
DIRECTOR: MARY LANCE Agnes Martin’s abstract paintings, like
Howard Hodgkin’s (below) are known for their precise use of color
and composition. Lance’s intimate film explores the methods and
influences of the Taos, New Mexico-based Martin, who says "When I
think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not
in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is an awareness of perfection.
At 91, she is still creating canvases with rigid grids and a soft palette.
(57 mins.)
WITH
HOWARD HODGKIN
UK 2002
DIRECTORs: various Susan Sontag has written of Hodgkin (b. 1932)
and his lush paintings, “There is a heroism in the vehemence and
lack of irony in Hodgkin's paintings. Their distinct shapes read like
a vocabulary of signals for the circulation, collision and rerouting of
desire. “ In 1992, the artist was knighted in Britain for his contribution
to art. (26 mins.)
portland art museum curator of modern & contemporary art, bruce Guenther
will discuss the films.
JUNE
27 SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
DREAM OF LIGHT
SPAIN 1992
DIRECTOR: VICTOR ERICE Victor Erice (SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE) provides
one of the most intense, detailed looks at the artistic process ever captured
on film. Winner of the International Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film
Fetsival and recently voted the number-one film of the 1990s in an international
critics poll, DREAM OF LIGHT is an exquisite, lingering portrait. Spanish
realist painter Antonio Lopez Garcia (b.1936) meticulously paints a single
work: a still life of the quince tree in his courtyard. “Erice...
achieves a mesmerizing intensity...a thoughtful, delicate inquiry into
the essence of the artistic process, and a tribute to the beauty and mutability
of nature. . . One of as kind.”Janet Maslin, NEW YORK TIMES. (128
mins.)
JULY
1 THUR 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
PAINTERS ON FILM UNITE!
Curator Stuart Horodner sorts through the history of painters on film
to create an energetic collage where several Van Goghs meet Michelangelo,
Rembrandt, Lautrec, Warhol, Picasso,and numerous fictional painters.
The Film Center’s Visiting Artist Programs are sponsored by The
Independent Film Channel
ADDITIONAL SERIES GUESTS
TO BE ANNOUNCED