Upstate New York has been the birthplace of many Great Awakenings. In the 1820s, religious fervor so swept the region it became known as “the burned-over district.” In the 1960s, Timothy Leary’s commune in Millbrook became ground control for the East Coast psychedelic movement. “By the time we got to Woodstock,” sang Joni Mitchell, “we were half a million strong.”
More than five decades after Woodstock, in Wappinger Falls, Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson Grey, are trying to use art to get back to the garden. Under the...
More than five decades after Woodstock, in Wappinger Falls, Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson Grey, are trying to use art to get back to the garden. Under the...
- 6/30/2023
- by Cassady Rosenblum
- Rollingstone.com
As the war in Ukraine creates ever growing tensions between the United States and Russia, it makes one wonder how it will affect the interpersonal dynamics among the astronauts on board the International Space Station. Do they ignore geopolitical strife and concentrate on their duties? Do they get into arguments over their countries’ respective positions? Or do they literally attempt to murder each other?
The last premise forms the basis of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s tense thriller receiving its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Nick Shafir’s screenplay (an entry in the 2020 Black List of the year’s best unproduced scripts) concerns six astronauts — three American, three Russian — working harmoniously together until war apparently breaks out between the two countries. The Americans receive a message from NASA instructing them, “Your new objective is to take control of the Iss. By any means necessary.” The question is, did the Russian...
The last premise forms the basis of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s tense thriller receiving its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Nick Shafir’s screenplay (an entry in the 2020 Black List of the year’s best unproduced scripts) concerns six astronauts — three American, three Russian — working harmoniously together until war apparently breaks out between the two countries. The Americans receive a message from NASA instructing them, “Your new objective is to take control of the Iss. By any means necessary.” The question is, did the Russian...
- 6/14/2023
- by Frank Scheck
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Hailing from Singapore, Gladys Ng's films have left mischievous breadcrumbs across the world. Most known for her widely traveled, surreal short drama, “Still is Time”, the writer-director's career has seen a trail of poignant, delicate vignettes. Tales of urban loneliness, loss, hope and wonder meld in the quaint imaginations of Ng's characters. But never mistake their quietude for frailty. Underneath a genre veneer of realism, a dreamlike tussle emerges into play. When thinking of Gladys Ng's films, one might say that life is, indeed, rather strange. Boasting a new short this year at Oberhausen and Busan Shorts, curiously titled “Every Floor Looks The Same”, we wrote to the filmmaker, asking about her inspirations, practice and how the magic happens.
Tell us a little more about “Every Floor Looks The Same”.
I think the years during covid had changed me. It gave me time to reflect on serious matters, while...
Tell us a little more about “Every Floor Looks The Same”.
I think the years during covid had changed me. It gave me time to reflect on serious matters, while...
- 5/11/2023
- by Renee Ng
- AsianMoviePulse
As tourists on Rodeo Drive crowded the storefront of the women’s Louis Vuitton store hoping for a glimpse of stars like Miranda Kerr and Billie Lourd who were brunching inside, private town cars — which likely tipped off said looky-loos — whisked media and influencers away to a private preview of the French design house’s just-opened Crafting Dreams exhibition.
Held at a private Bel-Air residence from now through May 3, the artful, immersive showcase takes place inside an architecturally stunning modern-contemporary three-story home, which features breathtaking views of the city as well as alfresco glimpses of Jennifer Aniston and The Weeknd’s backyards. (The latter tidbit was according to a champagne-sipping influencer; so take it with a grain of Louis Vuitton-branded salt since details about the home and its owner were unavailable.)
But most importantly — to fashion and interior design enthusiasts at least — the brand’s most exclusive and bespoke offerings...
Held at a private Bel-Air residence from now through May 3, the artful, immersive showcase takes place inside an architecturally stunning modern-contemporary three-story home, which features breathtaking views of the city as well as alfresco glimpses of Jennifer Aniston and The Weeknd’s backyards. (The latter tidbit was according to a champagne-sipping influencer; so take it with a grain of Louis Vuitton-branded salt since details about the home and its owner were unavailable.)
But most importantly — to fashion and interior design enthusiasts at least — the brand’s most exclusive and bespoke offerings...
- 4/13/2023
- by Lindzi Scharf
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
Justin Timberlake may be mum on new music, but the singer is stepping back in front of the cameras for a new campaign with Louis Vuitton.
Timberlake is one of six celebrities tapped by the fashion house for Drop 2 of its “Creating Infinity” campaign, which celebrates the brand’s exclusive collaboration with avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The collection plays up Kusama’s iconic infinity dots and spirited...
Justin Timberlake may be mum on new music, but the singer is stepping back in front of the cameras for a new campaign with Louis Vuitton.
Timberlake is one of six celebrities tapped by the fashion house for Drop 2 of its “Creating Infinity” campaign, which celebrates the brand’s exclusive collaboration with avant-garde Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The collection plays up Kusama’s iconic infinity dots and spirited...
- 4/2/2023
- by Tim Chan
- Rollingstone.com
February is L.A.’s busiest art month, with no less than five fairs kicking off around the city. Among them, Frieze Los Angeles, owned by Endeavor, returns in a new and larger location at Santa Monica Airport. As Frieze opens, THR catches up with four buzzy artists, all with new shows right now that explore the topography of Los Angeles.
Refik Anadol Refik Anadol
Just days after his AI-based art was shown on screens surrounding the stage of the 2023 Grammys, artist and computer programmer Anadol opened a mesmerizing solo show, Living Paintings, at Jeffrey Deitch. The exhibit showcases the Istanbul-born artist’s large-scale LED-screen video works that harness millions of images and data points, transforming them into seemingly fluid cascades of imagery. The pieces include the work Artificial Realities: California Landscapes, generated from 300 million photos of national parks in the Golden State. “We create our AI on this data...
Refik Anadol Refik Anadol
Just days after his AI-based art was shown on screens surrounding the stage of the 2023 Grammys, artist and computer programmer Anadol opened a mesmerizing solo show, Living Paintings, at Jeffrey Deitch. The exhibit showcases the Istanbul-born artist’s large-scale LED-screen video works that harness millions of images and data points, transforming them into seemingly fluid cascades of imagery. The pieces include the work Artificial Realities: California Landscapes, generated from 300 million photos of national parks in the Golden State. “We create our AI on this data...
- 2/16/2023
- by Degen Pener
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Gisele Bündchen is reportedly set to speak out on her and Tom Brady’s divorce for the first time.
Page Six reports that the Brazilian model will break her silence in a cover story for Vanity Fair, given that, lately, Bündchen has been photographed posing in front of cameras, beachside in Miami, as she makes a return to the modelling industry. She recently donned a pink Chanel swimsuit while partaking in a photoshoot close to her Florida home.
Read More: Gisele Bündchen Heads Home To Brazil For First Christmas Since Tom Brady Split
Sources told the outlet that Bündchen, 42, will pose for a Vf cover and undergo an in-depth interview about her split from Brady. Her divorce from the NFL champion was finalized in October.
While a spokesperson for the magazine said that Vf does not comment on editorial rumours, a Condé Nast insider told Page Six: “I could see...
Page Six reports that the Brazilian model will break her silence in a cover story for Vanity Fair, given that, lately, Bündchen has been photographed posing in front of cameras, beachside in Miami, as she makes a return to the modelling industry. She recently donned a pink Chanel swimsuit while partaking in a photoshoot close to her Florida home.
Read More: Gisele Bündchen Heads Home To Brazil For First Christmas Since Tom Brady Split
Sources told the outlet that Bündchen, 42, will pose for a Vf cover and undergo an in-depth interview about her split from Brady. Her divorce from the NFL champion was finalized in October.
While a spokesperson for the magazine said that Vf does not comment on editorial rumours, a Condé Nast insider told Page Six: “I could see...
- 2/1/2023
- by Melissa Romualdi
- ET Canada
Alice Koh, who exec produced such recent documentaries as Kusama: Infinity and Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable, died suddenly of a heart attack at her home in New York City on January 21, a spokesperson for the Koh family tells Deadline. She was 51.
Koh was born in Los Angeles on December 9, 1970, first segueing into film work in 2015. With the former doc from director Heather Lenz, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, she helped spotlight the life and work of the internationally renowned artist Yayoi Kusama. With the latter, from Sasha Waters Freyer, which won the SXSW Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature, she placed her focus on the iconic American still photographer known for his shots of 1960s New York City.
Koh’s creative partner was her brother, the award-winning film producer David Koh, with whom she hosted a film salon at the Roxy Hotel Cinema for several years.
Koh was born in Los Angeles on December 9, 1970, first segueing into film work in 2015. With the former doc from director Heather Lenz, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, she helped spotlight the life and work of the internationally renowned artist Yayoi Kusama. With the latter, from Sasha Waters Freyer, which won the SXSW Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature, she placed her focus on the iconic American still photographer known for his shots of 1960s New York City.
Koh’s creative partner was her brother, the award-winning film producer David Koh, with whom she hosted a film salon at the Roxy Hotel Cinema for several years.
- 2/28/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
For Variety‘s Writers on Writers, Morgan Parker pays tribute to “Zola” (screenplay by Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris; based on the tweets by A’Ziah King; based on the article by David Kushner; story by Andrew Neel and Mike Roberts).
“Who you gonna be tonight?” is a question I’ve asked in the mirror a hundred times.
Maybe because I’m a Black woman who wants to have control over how other people see my body, instead of the other way around, and because I know I look like something to everybody. (“What do I look like to you?”)
Maybe that’s why, when Zola is pole dancing with the gracious athleticism of Serena Williams and the reckless sensuality of Nicki’s “Anaconda,” and an old white guy leans in to tell her she looks like Whoopi Goldberg, I know shit about to go left. These brilliantly placed and...
“Who you gonna be tonight?” is a question I’ve asked in the mirror a hundred times.
Maybe because I’m a Black woman who wants to have control over how other people see my body, instead of the other way around, and because I know I look like something to everybody. (“What do I look like to you?”)
Maybe that’s why, when Zola is pole dancing with the gracious athleticism of Serena Williams and the reckless sensuality of Nicki’s “Anaconda,” and an old white guy leans in to tell her she looks like Whoopi Goldberg, I know shit about to go left. These brilliantly placed and...
- 12/22/2021
- by Morgan Parker
- Variety Film + TV
It is not so frequent for an author to become the director of his own novels, but Ryu Murakami, whose most famous work is probably Miike-directed “Audition” is not your regular artist in any way. “Tokyo Decadence” is not even the first of his novels he directs, since his filled with violence, drugs and overall extremity style was already self-adapted into cinema three times before this movie. Let us see why he is so unique though.
In a style relatively similar to De Sade’s perversion cataloguing “The 120 Days of Sodom”, the film revolves around the life of a 22-year-old timid female college student named Ai who works as a specialty prostitute for an exclusive escort agency that caters to wealthy, mostly perverted and corrupt, Japanese men in Tokyo. The biggest part of the movie highlights her line of work, as Murakami takes his time depicting her into sessions involving sodomy,...
In a style relatively similar to De Sade’s perversion cataloguing “The 120 Days of Sodom”, the film revolves around the life of a 22-year-old timid female college student named Ai who works as a specialty prostitute for an exclusive escort agency that caters to wealthy, mostly perverted and corrupt, Japanese men in Tokyo. The biggest part of the movie highlights her line of work, as Murakami takes his time depicting her into sessions involving sodomy,...
- 1/23/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Now in its 93rd year, the spectacle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has ushered in the holiday season with marching bands, colorful floats, character balloons, musical performances, and, of course, the arrival of Santa Claus. This year’s festivities also include a handful of country stars, although you’ll need to do some channel-flipping to catch them all.
Here’s everything you need to know to watch the Thanksgiving tradition.
How to watch: The parade airs on NBC from 9:00 a.m. to noon across all time zones,...
Here’s everything you need to know to watch the Thanksgiving tradition.
How to watch: The parade airs on NBC from 9:00 a.m. to noon across all time zones,...
- 11/27/2019
- by Stephen L. Betts
- Rollingstone.com
The French director Catherine Breillat was this year’s head of the Concorso Internationale Jury at the 72nd edition of the Locarno Film Festival, the first edition under the new artistic director Lili Hinstin. The way in which Breillat portrays the female body and connects it to the notions of shame and fear in her cinema places her among radical feminist artists the likes of Carolee Schneeman and Yayoi Kusama. These are artists that radically challenged the prevailing conventions and taboos that have always existed throughout history with their performances, cinema, and art. Their work was often met with great hostility, as these women revealed and reclaimed that what is normally hidden and stigmatized: female desire, fear, and nudity.I spoke to Catherine Breillat in Locarno about sexual hypocrisy, the academic distinction between erotica and pornography, and the #MeToo movement. Notebook: Perhaps to start off, since you are the head...
- 10/20/2019
- MUBI
Previously a guest of honor at Beyoncé’s Coachella last year, J Balvin claimed Coachella for himself on Saturday night, with a high-octane show at sundown.
While plenty of Latinx talent has graced the festival’s main stage since its inception two decades ago, the Coachella Stage has counted predominantly rock acts, like the Mars Volta, Café Tacvba, Kinky and Zoé as alumni; the shape-shifting Puerto Rican hip-hop duo Calle 13 became the first urbano act to play the stage in 2010. J Balvin not only brought urbano back to the main...
While plenty of Latinx talent has graced the festival’s main stage since its inception two decades ago, the Coachella Stage has counted predominantly rock acts, like the Mars Volta, Café Tacvba, Kinky and Zoé as alumni; the shape-shifting Puerto Rican hip-hop duo Calle 13 became the first urbano act to play the stage in 2010. J Balvin not only brought urbano back to the main...
- 4/14/2019
- by Suzy Exposito
- Rollingstone.com
I have to admit my knowledge of the modern art world is very limited, and therefore I did not know who Yayoi Kusama is. At the end of this documentary, I have truly regretted my lack of knowledge, because Kusama is not only one of the greatest living artists, but also an extremely interesting individual.
Kusama Infinity is screening at the 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase
The film explores Yayoi Kusama’s journey from the 30s in Japan, and the turbulent relationship with her family and particularly her mother regarding her wish to become an artist and not to get married, to her move to America after sending fan mail across the sea to Georgia O’Keefe, the meager fame she enjoyed in the 60’s (where she rivaled Andy Warhol for press attention), her activist work during the war in Vietnam which deemed her a persona-non-grata in her hometown,...
Kusama Infinity is screening at the 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase
The film explores Yayoi Kusama’s journey from the 30s in Japan, and the turbulent relationship with her family and particularly her mother regarding her wish to become an artist and not to get married, to her move to America after sending fan mail across the sea to Georgia O’Keefe, the meager fame she enjoyed in the 60’s (where she rivaled Andy Warhol for press attention), her activist work during the war in Vietnam which deemed her a persona-non-grata in her hometown,...
- 3/29/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
I have to admit my knowledge of the modern art world is very limited, and therefore I did not know who Yayoi Kusama is. At the end of this documentary, I have truly regretted my lack of knowledge, because Kusama is not only one of the greatest living artists, but also an extremely interesting individual.
Kusama Infinity screened at the 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase
The film explores Yayoi Kusama’s journey from the 30s in Japan, and the turbulent relationship with her family and particularly her mother regarding her wish to become an artist and not to get married, to her move to America after sending fan mail across the sea to Georgia O’Keefe, the meager fame she enjoyed in the 60’s (where she rivaled Andy Warhol for press attention), her activist work during the war in Vietnam which deemed her a persona-non-grata in her hometown,...
Kusama Infinity screened at the 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival Spring Showcase
The film explores Yayoi Kusama’s journey from the 30s in Japan, and the turbulent relationship with her family and particularly her mother regarding her wish to become an artist and not to get married, to her move to America after sending fan mail across the sea to Georgia O’Keefe, the meager fame she enjoyed in the 60’s (where she rivaled Andy Warhol for press attention), her activist work during the war in Vietnam which deemed her a persona-non-grata in her hometown,...
- 1/3/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga star in Warner Bros remake A Star Is Born.
It’s a busy weekend at the UK box office, with several big titles looking to make a splash.
Warner Bros will have high hopes for A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper’s remake of the famous Hollywood property in which he stars alongside Lady Gaga, one of the musician’s first acting roles.
The film went down a storm at this year’s Venice Film Festival where it played out of competition. The story sees Cooper playing a musician who helps a young singer find...
It’s a busy weekend at the UK box office, with several big titles looking to make a splash.
Warner Bros will have high hopes for A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper’s remake of the famous Hollywood property in which he stars alongside Lady Gaga, one of the musician’s first acting roles.
The film went down a storm at this year’s Venice Film Festival where it played out of competition. The story sees Cooper playing a musician who helps a young singer find...
- 10/5/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
A celebratory introduction to the work of Yayoi Kusama, Japan’s biggest-selling living artist, hints at the roots of her obsessive pattern-making
Heather Lenz’s film is a brief, celebratory introduction to the work of Japan’s biggest-selling living artist: 89-year-old Yayoi Kusama. She rebelled against her stiflingly reactionary upbringing in provincial Matsumoto for a lifelong adventure in art. With vast, tapestry-like canvases and witty soft-material sculptures she experimented in abstract impressionism, pop art, and also live public-space happenings involving the naked body. Her career really began in New York, where she became a succès de scandale in the counter-culture scene, but she returned in early middle age to Matsumoto, where she had been widely reviled for her controversial artworks. In many ways, this is a story of a woman who had to fight her way to the top all over again, having battled depression, the complacent sexism and bland...
Heather Lenz’s film is a brief, celebratory introduction to the work of Japan’s biggest-selling living artist: 89-year-old Yayoi Kusama. She rebelled against her stiflingly reactionary upbringing in provincial Matsumoto for a lifelong adventure in art. With vast, tapestry-like canvases and witty soft-material sculptures she experimented in abstract impressionism, pop art, and also live public-space happenings involving the naked body. Her career really began in New York, where she became a succès de scandale in the counter-culture scene, but she returned in early middle age to Matsumoto, where she had been widely reviled for her controversial artworks. In many ways, this is a story of a woman who had to fight her way to the top all over again, having battled depression, the complacent sexism and bland...
- 10/5/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Post-Labor Day weekend is not a time with high-profile new releases, but the weekend’s most significant story isn’t a new title: It’s the strength of Sony Pictures Classics’ “The Wife.” A Toronto 2017 premiere that made its theatrical debut August 17, it’s seeing some of the best results for specialized drama this year in its national expansion as it heads into awards season.
This weekend also saw the debut of multiple Sundance-debuted documentaries, with “Kusama: Infinity” as the standout in its two-city start. And “Blaze” opened three theaters in New York after several weeks in Texas, with a positive result. This risky release pattern seems to click.
Opening
Kusama: Infinity (Magnolia) – Metacritic: 69; Festivals include: Sundance 2018
$30,400 in 2 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $15,200
This documentary about 89-year-old Japanese multi-platform artist Yayoi Kusama saw strong New York-Los Angeles interest (one theater each). Expect that to replicate as it expands.
What...
This weekend also saw the debut of multiple Sundance-debuted documentaries, with “Kusama: Infinity” as the standout in its two-city start. And “Blaze” opened three theaters in New York after several weeks in Texas, with a positive result. This risky release pattern seems to click.
Opening
Kusama: Infinity (Magnolia) – Metacritic: 69; Festivals include: Sundance 2018
$30,400 in 2 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $15,200
This documentary about 89-year-old Japanese multi-platform artist Yayoi Kusama saw strong New York-Los Angeles interest (one theater each). Expect that to replicate as it expands.
What...
- 9/9/2018
- by Tom Brueggemann
- Indiewire
Now at the age of 88, legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is currently one of the most popular and successful artists in the world. Her recent New York gallery exhibition, "Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life" - featuring her signature "Infinity Mirror Rooms," with brightly colored mirror balls in a space with mirrored walls - drew many thousands of visitors, with lines stretching around the block, and up to six-hour waits to enter the gallery. Images of Kusama's work are ubiquitous on social media, her immersive and mesmerizing visual environments seemingly custom made for Instagram. Kusama's installations, paintings, and sculptures tour around the world practically non-stop, and command top prices at auctions. One of her 1960s paintings sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction,...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 9/6/2018
- Screen Anarchy
When making a documentary chronicling the life and work of an iconic artist it is necessary and downright vital to interrogate why their art struck a chord in the first place. It is not acceptable to present things in a matter of fact way that is no different from reading about their life on Wikipedia. The genre of documentary filmmaking often settles for what is expected instead of bursting the formula of “interview-clip-interview” wide open, making for a sameness that is only disrupted in the differentiation in subject material–but the subjects need better, more daring treatment. This is especially the case if we are talking about an artist as revolutionary and vast as Yayoi Kusama.
Director Heather Lenz’s Kusama—Infinity settles for the typical construction one finds in most documentaries. There’s plenty of archival footage, arranged chronologically, interspersed with interviews here and there stressing the importance of...
Director Heather Lenz’s Kusama—Infinity settles for the typical construction one finds in most documentaries. There’s plenty of archival footage, arranged chronologically, interspersed with interviews here and there stressing the importance of...
- 9/3/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Yayoi Kusama, 89, is the most successful living female artist. Her pieces have fetched up to $7 million and, at any given time, she has handfuls of exhibitions on view at museums and galleries across the world. (Right now: Indonesia, New York, Cleveland and Los Angeles, the latter at Marciano Foundation.)
Her immense popularity — driven in part thanks to the selfie craze, which has led museum patrons to wait in hours-long lines just for pics inside her Infinity Mirror Rooms — came as a shock to documentarian Heather Lenz, who had been following Kusama's life and career rather closely ...
Her immense popularity — driven in part thanks to the selfie craze, which has led museum patrons to wait in hours-long lines just for pics inside her Infinity Mirror Rooms — came as a shock to documentarian Heather Lenz, who had been following Kusama's life and career rather closely ...
- 8/20/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Yayoi Kusama, 89, is the most successful living female artist. Her pieces have fetched up to $7 million and, at any given time, she has handfuls of exhibitions on view at museums and galleries across the world. (Right now: Indonesia, New York, Cleveland and Los Angeles, the latter at Marciano Foundation.)
Her immense popularity — driven in part thanks to the selfie craze, which has led museum patrons to wait in hours-long lines just for pics inside her Infinity Mirror Rooms — came as a shock to documentarian Heather Lenz, who had been following Kusama's life and career rather closely ...
Her immense popularity — driven in part thanks to the selfie craze, which has led museum patrons to wait in hours-long lines just for pics inside her Infinity Mirror Rooms — came as a shock to documentarian Heather Lenz, who had been following Kusama's life and career rather closely ...
- 8/20/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"I come up with new ideas so quickly. My canvas can't keep up with me." Magnolia Pictures has debuted the first official trailer for Heather Lenz's fascinating artist documentary Kusama - Infinity, which first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Lenz's Kusama - Infinity profiles world-renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, now 89 years old and still creating. The film "traces Kusama’s trajectory from a conservative upbringing in Japan to battling sexism and racism in 1960s NYC to her unstoppable rise to international fame." She has re-established her prominence with the highly successful "Infinity Room" and other recent art projects and global exhibitions. I saw this at Sundance and it's a wonderful, intriguing, inspiring doc film about a truly masterful artist, spanning her entire life and career. Highly recommended. Here's the official trailer (+ two posters) for Heather Lenz's Kusama - Infinity, direct from YouTube: Now the...
- 8/16/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
You can go ahead and scratch ‘Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity’ off the list of possible Avengers 4 subtitles.
As spotted by McU Cosmic, earlier today the official Russo Brothers Instagram account shared an up-close look at what appeared to be some sort of golden calling card. The font is admittedly a little blurry, but the title clearly reads ‘Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity,’ which, coupled with the caption, can be construed as a surprise reveal.
But that’s simply not the case. First thing’s first, the subtitle is ridiculous, and the original Instagram has since been yanked offline – but not before it was captured via screenshot (see below). For the record, the only hashtag provided redirected users to a Yayoi Kusama art exhibit in Los Angeles, which likely has nothing to do with the McU or Avengers 4.
The Russo Brothers Troll Fans With Avengers 4's Title 1 of 2
Click to...
As spotted by McU Cosmic, earlier today the official Russo Brothers Instagram account shared an up-close look at what appeared to be some sort of golden calling card. The font is admittedly a little blurry, but the title clearly reads ‘Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity,’ which, coupled with the caption, can be construed as a surprise reveal.
But that’s simply not the case. First thing’s first, the subtitle is ridiculous, and the original Instagram has since been yanked offline – but not before it was captured via screenshot (see below). For the record, the only hashtag provided redirected users to a Yayoi Kusama art exhibit in Los Angeles, which likely has nothing to do with the McU or Avengers 4.
The Russo Brothers Troll Fans With Avengers 4's Title 1 of 2
Click to...
- 8/16/2018
- by Michael Briers
- We Got This Covered
Exclusive: Sundance docs Matangi / Maya / M.I.A and Kusama – Infinity have scored deals in Europe and Asia for UK sales outfit Dogwoof.
The former, Steve Loveridge’s music-biopic of Sri Lankan singer and outspoken activist M.I.A, premiered in Sundance, followed by a European premiere in Berlin. Dogwoof has signed deals with Beat Films (Cis), Anticipate Pictures (Singapore), Non Stop, Avalon (Spain), Mad Man, I Wonder (Italy) and Against Gravity (Poland). Cinereach will distribute in the U.S later this summer.
Kusama – Infinity, Heather Lenz’s feature tracing the life of contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, has gone to Eurozoom (France), Weltkino (Germany), Feltrinelli (Italy), Avalon (Spain), Atrium (South Korea), Doc Film Centre (Russia) and Movies Matter (Thailand). Previous sales include Mad Man (Australia and New Zealand), Edko (Hong Kong), Non Stop (Scandinavia), Joint Ent (Taiwan) and Nueva Era (Mexico). Magnolia has U.S.
The former, Steve Loveridge’s music-biopic of Sri Lankan singer and outspoken activist M.I.A, premiered in Sundance, followed by a European premiere in Berlin. Dogwoof has signed deals with Beat Films (Cis), Anticipate Pictures (Singapore), Non Stop, Avalon (Spain), Mad Man, I Wonder (Italy) and Against Gravity (Poland). Cinereach will distribute in the U.S later this summer.
Kusama – Infinity, Heather Lenz’s feature tracing the life of contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, has gone to Eurozoom (France), Weltkino (Germany), Feltrinelli (Italy), Avalon (Spain), Atrium (South Korea), Doc Film Centre (Russia) and Movies Matter (Thailand). Previous sales include Mad Man (Australia and New Zealand), Edko (Hong Kong), Non Stop (Scandinavia), Joint Ent (Taiwan) and Nueva Era (Mexico). Magnolia has U.S.
- 5/8/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Nbff kicks off opening night with Sundance hit “American Animals.” The British-American true crime drama, written and directed by Bart Layton, starring Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson, will be followed by a gala reception at the Fashion Island shopping mall.
The fest will end its eight-day run with the West Coast premiere of “All Square,” director John Hyams’ dramedy about a small-time bookie (Michael Kelly) who comes up with a scheme to take bets on Little League games.
Following the screening, the fest, in partnership with Schiefer ChopShop and Via Lido Plaza, will host the closing-night celebration. The outdoor event will feature a hosted bar by Tito’s Vodka, Oban Whiskey and Guinness, with culinary tastings from top local restaurants.
In between those bookends, Nbff will host the U.S. premieres of the Italian feature “Wife and Husband,” the Chinese film “End of Summer,” the Japanese award-winning film “3 Ft.
The fest will end its eight-day run with the West Coast premiere of “All Square,” director John Hyams’ dramedy about a small-time bookie (Michael Kelly) who comes up with a scheme to take bets on Little League games.
Following the screening, the fest, in partnership with Schiefer ChopShop and Via Lido Plaza, will host the closing-night celebration. The outdoor event will feature a hosted bar by Tito’s Vodka, Oban Whiskey and Guinness, with culinary tastings from top local restaurants.
In between those bookends, Nbff will host the U.S. premieres of the Italian feature “Wife and Husband,” the Chinese film “End of Summer,” the Japanese award-winning film “3 Ft.
- 4/26/2018
- by Peter Caranicas
- Variety Film + TV
Film programs include a retrospective on Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad, a new film from one of the most-recognizable artists in Asia, Sylvia Chang (“Love Education”) and another from veteran Asian Canadian director Mina Shum (“Meditation Park”).
Eight Māori female directors deliver “Waru,” a film in which all eight parts start at 10 a.m., are told in real time, are a single 10-minute take and each feature a Māori female lead.
San Diego, California – March 22, 2018 – The 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (Sdaff) Spring Showcase , presented by Pacific Arts Movement (Pac Arts), today announced its lineup of 15 films from nine countries, including four North American premieres, one west coast premiere and the only third-ever U.S. retrospective on prolific Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad.
“Once again, Asian filmmakers took our breath away with wide-ranging works that demonstrate the diversity of experiences and sensibilities on three continents,” says Pac Arts Artistic Director Brian Hu.
Eight Māori female directors deliver “Waru,” a film in which all eight parts start at 10 a.m., are told in real time, are a single 10-minute take and each feature a Māori female lead.
San Diego, California – March 22, 2018 – The 8th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (Sdaff) Spring Showcase , presented by Pacific Arts Movement (Pac Arts), today announced its lineup of 15 films from nine countries, including four North American premieres, one west coast premiere and the only third-ever U.S. retrospective on prolific Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad.
“Once again, Asian filmmakers took our breath away with wide-ranging works that demonstrate the diversity of experiences and sensibilities on three continents,” says Pac Arts Artistic Director Brian Hu.
- 4/5/2018
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
Film follows tribute artists honouring the man in Mirroring Michael Jackson.
DocMode, the documentary arm of Clay Epstein’s La-based Film Mode Entertainment, has launched worldwide sales at this week’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin on Kalliope Films’ Mirroring Michael Jackson and is screening footage.
The film follows tribute artists who dedicate their lives to honouring the late performer. The film includes appearances by Michael Jackson own bass player of ten years, Alex Al, who composed and produced the score with Pete Merriweather.
“We are huge fans of Michael Jackson and honored that Kira has trusted us with this incredible love letter to the King of Pop,” Film Mode president Epstein said. “Audiences are going to be blown away by the talent in the film, and be inspired to continue his legacy.”
“Since Michael Jackson’s passing, his legion of fans has looked to the Mj tribute artists for comfort and solace as a way to...
DocMode, the documentary arm of Clay Epstein’s La-based Film Mode Entertainment, has launched worldwide sales at this week’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin on Kalliope Films’ Mirroring Michael Jackson and is screening footage.
The film follows tribute artists who dedicate their lives to honouring the late performer. The film includes appearances by Michael Jackson own bass player of ten years, Alex Al, who composed and produced the score with Pete Merriweather.
“We are huge fans of Michael Jackson and honored that Kira has trusted us with this incredible love letter to the King of Pop,” Film Mode president Epstein said. “Audiences are going to be blown away by the talent in the film, and be inspired to continue his legacy.”
“Since Michael Jackson’s passing, his legion of fans has looked to the Mj tribute artists for comfort and solace as a way to...
- 2/19/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist premiered at Sundance in January.
Documentary specialist Dogwoof has secured a flurry of deals on two of its big sales titles at this week’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist – the feature doc about British fashion icon Vivienne Westwood – has sold to Us (Greenwich Entertainment), Canada (Films We Like), Scandinavia (Non Stop), Cis and Russia (Pioner), China TV rights (Dd Dream), Thailand (Movies Matter) and world inflight (Jaguar).
Previously announced territories were China (Tencent), Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Nfp), Australia and New Zealand (Madman), Switzerland (Nfp), Hong Kong (Edko), and Japan (Kadokawa).
The film premiered at Sundance in January, Dogwoof will release in the UK on March 23. Producers on the project were Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott, and John Battsek. Executive producers were Anna Godas and Leo Haidar.
Dogwoof has also racked up deals on Kusama – Infinity, Heather Lenz’s portrait...
Documentary specialist Dogwoof has secured a flurry of deals on two of its big sales titles at this week’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin.
Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist – the feature doc about British fashion icon Vivienne Westwood – has sold to Us (Greenwich Entertainment), Canada (Films We Like), Scandinavia (Non Stop), Cis and Russia (Pioner), China TV rights (Dd Dream), Thailand (Movies Matter) and world inflight (Jaguar).
Previously announced territories were China (Tencent), Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Nfp), Australia and New Zealand (Madman), Switzerland (Nfp), Hong Kong (Edko), and Japan (Kadokawa).
The film premiered at Sundance in January, Dogwoof will release in the UK on March 23. Producers on the project were Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott, and John Battsek. Executive producers were Anna Godas and Leo Haidar.
Dogwoof has also racked up deals on Kusama – Infinity, Heather Lenz’s portrait...
- 2/18/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Now at the age of 88, legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is currently one of the most popular and successful artists in the world. Her recent New York gallery exhibition, "Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life" - featuring her signature "Infinity Mirror Rooms," with brightly colored mirror balls in a space with mirrored walls - drew many thousands of visitors, with lines stretching around the block, and up to six-hour waits to enter the gallery. Images of Kusama's work are ubiquitous on social media, her immersive and mesmerizing visual environments seemingly custom made for Instagram. Kusama's installations, paintings, and sculptures tour around the world practically non-stop, and command top prices at auctions. One of her 1960s paintings sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction,...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 2/2/2018
- Screen Anarchy
What makes a documentary suited to a theatrical release—and all the expense and effort associated with it? And when are they more appropriate for smaller screens? After several straight months of disappointing box-office sales for most nonfiction films, including several hits from last year’s Sundance, this question would seem to be a pressing one out of this year’s film festival. But the answer—as evidenced by the few distribution deals that closed before and during Sundance, those that are still pending, and those that should be—isn’t so easy to nail down, though some combination of topicality, celebrity or artistry certainly comes into play.
Before Sundance kicked off, Oscar-winner Morgan Neville’s Mister Rogers film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” was one of the few documentaries to already have a major theatrical distributor (Focus Features) behind it—and its rapturous Park City unveiling appeared to justify it.
Before Sundance kicked off, Oscar-winner Morgan Neville’s Mister Rogers film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” was one of the few documentaries to already have a major theatrical distributor (Focus Features) behind it—and its rapturous Park City unveiling appeared to justify it.
- 1/28/2018
- by Anthony Kaufman
- Indiewire
Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to Kusama – Infinity, a documentary about Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama that premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival.
Terms of the acquisition deal were not disclosed. Heather Lenz wrote, directed and produced the U.S. Documentary Competition entry about the best-selling female artist known for her Pop Art style and prolific use of polka dots.
"Kusama – Infinity is a beautifully crafted and moving portrait of one of the most intriguing artists of our time,” Magnolia Pictures president Eamonn Bowles said Thursday in a statement.
Added Lenz in her own statement: "After many of...
Terms of the acquisition deal were not disclosed. Heather Lenz wrote, directed and produced the U.S. Documentary Competition entry about the best-selling female artist known for her Pop Art style and prolific use of polka dots.
"Kusama – Infinity is a beautifully crafted and moving portrait of one of the most intriguing artists of our time,” Magnolia Pictures president Eamonn Bowles said Thursday in a statement.
Added Lenz in her own statement: "After many of...
- 1/25/2018
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to Kusama – Infinity, the Heather Lenz documentary about famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The pic premiered over the weekend in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Kusama, who grew up up in Japan during World War II, overcame life in a dysfunctional family that discouraged her creative ambitions, sexism and racism in the art establishment, mental illness in a culture where that was a particular…...
- 1/25/2018
- Deadline
Annapurna understood to be closing on Sorry To Bother You.
Sundance deal flow quickened up on Thursday (January 25) as Saban Films acquired North American rights to Lizzie, Magnolia Pictures took Kusama – Infinity, and Spc acquired Puzzle.
Meanwhile Annapurna was understood to be closing worldwide rights on Boots Riley’s sci-fi satire Sorry To Bother You following that film’s premiere in U.S. Dramatic Competition over the weekend.
Saban will partner with Roadside Attractions on a summer theatrical release for Craig William Macneill’s period drama Lizzie, which stars Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart and is based on Bryce Kass’s screenplay about the unsolved 19th century Borden murders.
Sevigny plays Borden, who lives under her father’s domineering control until she meets and falls for the family maid Bridget Sullivan (Stewart) and was subsequently put on trial for the murder of her father and step-mother. Lizzie premiered last Friday in U.S. Dramatic Competition...
Sundance deal flow quickened up on Thursday (January 25) as Saban Films acquired North American rights to Lizzie, Magnolia Pictures took Kusama – Infinity, and Spc acquired Puzzle.
Meanwhile Annapurna was understood to be closing worldwide rights on Boots Riley’s sci-fi satire Sorry To Bother You following that film’s premiere in U.S. Dramatic Competition over the weekend.
Saban will partner with Roadside Attractions on a summer theatrical release for Craig William Macneill’s period drama Lizzie, which stars Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart and is based on Bryce Kass’s screenplay about the unsolved 19th century Borden murders.
Sevigny plays Borden, who lives under her father’s domineering control until she meets and falls for the family maid Bridget Sullivan (Stewart) and was subsequently put on trial for the murder of her father and step-mother. Lizzie premiered last Friday in U.S. Dramatic Competition...
- 1/25/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Yayoi Kusama David Zwirner Gallery, NYC Thru December 16th, 2017
Spots are a disease -- a "Pop Art" pox; a sign of madness, an hallucination. As Tony Hancock says in his brilliant comic movie The Rebel (1961) where he plays a modern artist: "I get the spots before my eyes, the red mist, and I'm off."
Yayoi Kusama is off again at David Zwirner Gallery on 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea. You will have to queue around the block to see her new installations. But you can just walk into a room on 19th street and see 66 of her new paintings. This is a review of the work in that room.
Paranoia is lonely, ironically the sense you have of being watched belies the fact that no one's taking any notice at all. The putting on of spots was an act, for Kusama, of "field" being used to cover neurosis. Kusama's paintings...
Spots are a disease -- a "Pop Art" pox; a sign of madness, an hallucination. As Tony Hancock says in his brilliant comic movie The Rebel (1961) where he plays a modern artist: "I get the spots before my eyes, the red mist, and I'm off."
Yayoi Kusama is off again at David Zwirner Gallery on 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea. You will have to queue around the block to see her new installations. But you can just walk into a room on 19th street and see 66 of her new paintings. This is a review of the work in that room.
Paranoia is lonely, ironically the sense you have of being watched belies the fact that no one's taking any notice at all. The putting on of spots was an act, for Kusama, of "field" being used to cover neurosis. Kusama's paintings...
- 12/3/2017
- by Millree Hughes
- www.culturecatch.com
Before you scamper off to your ancestral homeland (Ohio, probably), make sure you’ll be back from the Turkey Day festivities in time to enjoy these four events. Two are designed to invigorate you after a tryptophan overdose, while the others are sure to inspire you in their own colorful ways. A bonus “to-do”: feel grateful to return to L.A. after being surrounded by relatives quizzing you about what you do and how it’s going. Get moving on Thanksgiving.Let’s get this obvious out of the way first: Thanksgiving is this week and while for some it means relaxing, eating a ton of food, and maybe seeing a relative or two, for others, it’s a chance to get the ol’ blood pumping. Make the most of the holiday and participate in L.A.’s annual Turkey Trot (Nov. 23), featuring 5k and 10k runs, along with...
- 11/23/2017
- backstage.com
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Blu-ray
Criterion
1992/ 1:85 / 135 Min. / Street Date October 17, 2017
Starring Sheryl Lee, David Lynch, Ray Wise, Kyle MacLachlan
Cinematography by Ron Garcia
Written by David Lynch, Robert Engels
Music by Angelo Badalamenti
Edited by Mary Sweeney
Produced by Mark Frost, Tim Harbert, David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch
Making its debut in April of 1990, Twin Peaks arrived on ABC’s doorstep as a kind of Trojan horse, infiltrating the network disguised as a weekly melodrama while hiding its arthouse inclinations behind a Peyton Place exterior. A supernatural soap opera governed by doppelgängers, time travelers and the transmigration of souls, director David Lynch’s effort was a short-lived sensation but has since enjoyed its own reincarnations in a feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and the Showtime series, Twin Peaks: The Return.
The Return reunited the familiar characters created by Lynch and Mark Frost...
Blu-ray
Criterion
1992/ 1:85 / 135 Min. / Street Date October 17, 2017
Starring Sheryl Lee, David Lynch, Ray Wise, Kyle MacLachlan
Cinematography by Ron Garcia
Written by David Lynch, Robert Engels
Music by Angelo Badalamenti
Edited by Mary Sweeney
Produced by Mark Frost, Tim Harbert, David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch
Making its debut in April of 1990, Twin Peaks arrived on ABC’s doorstep as a kind of Trojan horse, infiltrating the network disguised as a weekly melodrama while hiding its arthouse inclinations behind a Peyton Place exterior. A supernatural soap opera governed by doppelgängers, time travelers and the transmigration of souls, director David Lynch’s effort was a short-lived sensation but has since enjoyed its own reincarnations in a feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and the Showtime series, Twin Peaks: The Return.
The Return reunited the familiar characters created by Lynch and Mark Frost...
- 11/11/2017
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Gentlemen, take some notes! Seattle Seahawks star Russell Wilson certainly proved he knows how to treat his wife Ciara right this weekend. The footballer shut down the Seattle Art Museum on Saturday night for an out-of-this-world evening with his lady love—and showed the rest of the world that romance is anything but dead. Clearly still on cloud nine from her night with her main man, the mother of two took to her Instagram on Sunday to share a few pics and a starry video from the date. The singer wrote, "When Ya Man Shuts Down The Museum For #DateNight... Still Got My Head Spinnin'." The video shows the lovebirds as they take in the highly Instagramable scene from Yayoi Kusama's Infinity...
- 9/3/2017
- E! Online
Like patience deficient children, binge watchers were allowed to unwrap a gift prior to the holidays when Netflix surprisingly unveiled Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s new science-fiction drama series (although that labeling is a rather rudimentary denotation when describing the show’s scope) The Oa less than a week before its release. The streaming service is undoubtedly hoping to capitalize on the trickle down mystery brought on by recent attention grabbers like Sense8 and Stranger Things, and really, who can blame ‘em? Netflix’s latest secret is a vastly contrastive beast in tone and content when sought alongside narratives understandably thought to be its kin.
For those familiar with what co-creators Marling and Batmanglij are capable of inciting and inflicting as collaborators or independent filmmakers, you’ll know that The Oa’s far reaching ambition is the main attraction. Contrarily, Netflix users looking for their next fix to tide...
For those familiar with what co-creators Marling and Batmanglij are capable of inciting and inflicting as collaborators or independent filmmakers, you’ll know that The Oa’s far reaching ambition is the main attraction. Contrarily, Netflix users looking for their next fix to tide...
- 12/19/2016
- by Joseph Falcone
- We Got This Covered
Kourtney Kardashian's mommy dates are our favorite. In her latest, the E! star made sure the outing with kids Mason and Penelope Disick (and possibly baby Reign Disick, although no pictures have proven that yet) was both fun, hip and a learning experience, which is obviously a win on the Cool Mom chart. Kourt and her little ones decided to head out to Downtown Los Angeles to visit the new Contemporary Art Museum, The Broad, which is home to 2,000 works of art and has probably made an appearance on your Instagram feed, thanks to one particular room. Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room, a mirror-lined chamber housing a dazzling and seemingly endless Led light display, according to the website,...
- 2/20/2016
- E! Online
We know you're all very excited for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, but comedian Margaret Cho has some bad news for you: There's yellowface. Yes, it's almost 2016, and it's like we're back to Mickey Rooney circa 1961 being really offensive in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Scottish comedian Janette Tough makes a cameo appearance in the film as a male Japanese fashion designer named "Huki Muki" (that is not a real Japanese name) in an outfit that's clearly a reference to the artist Yayoi Kusama. Cho was the first to point out this troubling bit of yellowface, writing on Twitter, "It's hard enough to get into film and TV as a person of color - and when roles written for us are played by white actors - it's an outrage." She tweets: There are a number of troubling aspects to this beyond the yellowface, which includes...
- 12/18/2015
- by E. Alex Jung
- Vulture
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
It’s been a couple months since the last edition of What’s Up Doc? placed Michael Moore’s surprise world premiere of Where To Invade Next at the top of this list and in the meantime much shuffling has taken place and much time has been spent on various new endeavors (namely my Buffalo-based film series, Cultivate Cinema Circle). Finally taking its rightful place at the top, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hagedus’ Unlocking the Cage is in the midst of being scored by composer James Lavino, according to Lavino’s own personal site. Though the project has been taking shape at its own leisurely pace, I’d expect to see the film making its festival debut in early 2016.
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
- 11/5/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
The other day, I happened to mention to a woman I’d just met, a respected former contemporary art gallerist, that I was taking my two daughters to the David Zwirner Gallery so they could have a turn stickering Yayoi Kusama’s The Obliteration Room with cheerfully bright polka dots. “Oh, I didn’t realize they were doing a kids’ project there!” she exclaimed. Technically, of course, Zwirner isn’t hosting an after-school program, but one could easily be forgiven for mistaking the Kusama installation — an all-white replica of a living room and kitchen that viewers “paint” with multicolored sticker versions of the artist’s signature dots — for some sort of fun house.Both Creative Time’s Drifting in Daylight in Central Park and the Public Art Fund’s Please Touch the Art in Brooklyn Bridge Park, spring’s most high-profile public art projects, also seem to be aimed squarely at children,...
- 5/26/2015
- by Julie L. Belcove
- Vulture
In 2008, Dasha Zhukova, known for her cultural patronage as well as her marriage to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, opened the Garage, one of the largest contemporary arts spaces in her home country, inside Moscow's defunct Melnikov Bus Depot. Soon it hosted inquiries into the influence of John Cage and explorations of Eastern-European art, opened another temporary home, and finally, next month — Ukraine-related sanctions be damned! — it will debut its new Rem Koolhaas–designed home, a low-lying transparent prism that will host suitably sprawling exhibitions from artists like Rikrit Tiravanija and Yayoi Kusama.If you can't make it, here's a video, which is suitably high-flown in its inspiring vagueness: Garage is a magazine. Garage is a memory, as the trailer, narrated by Zhukova herself, describes. It's a blockbuster introduction to what promises to be an international cultural behemoth. The video trailer positions Garage less as an institutional gallery and more as...
- 5/13/2015
- by Kyle Chayka
- Vulture
You can almost hear the cheers from the art-spectacle fans: Yay! Yayoi is back! Early May 9, the line was long outside the preview for Yayoi Kusama’s new solo show “Give Me Love” at David Zwirner Gallery, and if you missed it, the gallery, which was determined above all things to make sure the images of the show were ubiquitous, made sure everyone was aware of the official promo hashtag: #obliterationroom.Kusama herself is notoriously shy, having famously resided in a mental hospital in Tokyo since 1973. Her work, however, is not — especially since it became fashionable again in the last few years. It often invites a certain playful participation, from her early performative sculptures to recent paintings that might have been created with the help of a kindergarten class. Obliteration Room is a re-creation of a part of an all-white, middle-class home. Inside, everything is either white or painted...
- 5/11/2015
- by Kyle Chayka
- Vulture
Documentary specialist Submarine Entertainment is aboard to co-produce and co-finance feature doc Kusama: A Life In Polka Dots about the titular Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The company will partner with Dogwoof on international sales. Heather Lenz is writing, directing and producing the story of Kusama’s turbulent quest to become a world famous artist. In the 1960s, she rivaled Warhol for press attention but hallucinations of polka dots and struggles against sexism and racism eventually led her to the Tokyo mental institution she has called home for over 30 years. After decades of working in obscurity she eventually became the first woman to represent Japan in the Venice Biennale in 1993. In 2008, her work broke an auction record at Christie’s for a living female artist, and in 2012, her Louis Vuitton clothing line launched. At Kusuma’s most recent show in Mexico City, it’s estimated 2.5M people attended and the museum...
- 2/11/2015
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline
Submarine has boarded the documentary Yayoi Kusama: A Life In Polka Dots.
The company will co-finance and partner with Dogwoof on international sales.
Heather Lenz will write, direct and produce the film about Kusama’s turbulent mission to become a world-renowned artist.
Karen Johnson also produces alongside Submarine’s David Koh and Dan Braun, while Stanley Buchthal, Submarine’s Josh Braun, Simone Haggiag and Alice Koh serve as executive producers.
Koh, Dan Braun and Buchthal negotiated the deal on with Chris L Perez of Donaldson + Callif on behalf of the film-makers and Anna Godas of Dogwoof Films.
The producers anticipate the film will be finished by the fourth quarter of this year.
The company will co-finance and partner with Dogwoof on international sales.
Heather Lenz will write, direct and produce the film about Kusama’s turbulent mission to become a world-renowned artist.
Karen Johnson also produces alongside Submarine’s David Koh and Dan Braun, while Stanley Buchthal, Submarine’s Josh Braun, Simone Haggiag and Alice Koh serve as executive producers.
Koh, Dan Braun and Buchthal negotiated the deal on with Chris L Perez of Donaldson + Callif on behalf of the film-makers and Anna Godas of Dogwoof Films.
The producers anticipate the film will be finished by the fourth quarter of this year.
- 2/10/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
People love being part of something a lot of other people are part of. They love the weird madness and ecstasy of crowds. Preferably crowds of strangers, crowds that turn into subcultures on the spot, where being part of something is their central reason for being. It's primitive, tribal. (Witness the whitest flash mob since hockey: SantaCon.) These days, art loves crowds too. The Museum of Modern Art's techno-showy Rain Room and the Guggenheim's blah, mall-like James Turrell light show saw huge lines for admission. Lately, these lines have appeared at galleries, too. Since November 6, when it opened, there have been long lines outside David Zwirner Gallery at the windy tip of far West 19th Street, everyone waiting to spend 45 seconds in Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away. (It closes this Saturday.) This booth-size room is dark except for 75...
- 12/17/2013
- by Jerry Saltz
- Vulture
George Clooney is all polka-dotted out on the latest issue of W Magazine! The 52 year-old movie star covers their annual Art Issue in a custom-designed installation by Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama. But trust George to still look amazing in a Giorgio Armani suit and bow-tie with painted white dots and a white shirt with black dots, all while posing in front of a spotted background. Inside the mag, the Oscar winner is asked who the greatest love of his life is, to which he responds: “I haven’t met her yet.”Though he was recently linked to Croatian model Monika Jakisic in October, his last serious relationship was with former WWE diva Stacy Keibler. Click the ‘Launch Gallery’ below to see who else the A-lister has dated.While Clooney plays coy about his love life, he didn’t shy away from revealing the Hollywood legends that have inspired his ideal woman.
- 12/3/2013
- by tooFab Staff
- TooFab
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