Found
in the Making: Films about Self-Taught Artists
When
onformity is often prized over eccentricity in our society,
what kind of bravery does it take to believe in your own ideas
and intentions and shut everything else out? The Foundation
for Self-Taught American Artists believes imagination should
be rewarded and aims to create a deeper understanding and broader
appreciation of self-taught art through the production and promotion
of documentary films.
Tuesday,
January 5, 2010
Between
Madness and Art: The Prinzhorn Collection
dir.
Christian Beetz, US, 2008, 75 mins, video, color
Introduced
by David Sachs, MD
What
is the link between psychological states and the creative process?
Is there a relationship between psychosis and the artistic impulse?
What can artworks produced by mental patients tell us about
artistic genius? Between Madness and Art examines
these issues through the story of Dr Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933),
a German student of psychiatry and art history. As Director
of the Heidelberg Psychiatric Clinic in the 1920s, he was fascinated
by the beauty and expressiveness of the drawings, paintings,
and sculptures of his schizophrenic patients. He began to study
and preserve this art, eventually writing a seminal study Artistry
of the Mentally Ill, and by the time of his death had
organized the largest collection of its type in the world.
After
Prinzhorn's death, the Nazis displayed some of his patients'
works for their 1937 exhibition of "degenerate art."
Forgotten for many years, the Prinzhorn Collection was rediscovered
by Harald Szeemann in 1963, toured Europe, Asia, and the US,
and has led to a reevaluation of what today is known as "outsider
art." The film tells this remarkable story through archival
footage, profiles of Prinzhorn's patient/artists, footage of
their artworks, and interviews with psychotherapists, doctors,
artists, curators, two contemporary outpatient artists and the
collection's current director.
Dr
Sachs is a Training and Supervisory Psychoanalyst at the Philadelphia
Centerfor Psychoanalysis, and was Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
(emeritus) at Hahnemann University Medical School. He has spent
more than 40 years teaching, writing and treating patients.
Tuesday,
March 9, 2010
Mr Patterns
dir. Catriona McKenzie,
Australia, 2004, video, 55 mins, color
Introduced by
Jacqueline van Rhyn
Mr Patterns is
a journey into the heart of an aboriginal commune and an expose
of racial division in modern Australia. Art teacher Geoff Bardon
was sent to the government settlement at Papunya in Australia’s
Western Desert, where he found more than a thousand Aboriginal
people living in a state of dislocation, their culture being
systematically wiped out through assimilation. In defiance of
white authorities, Bardon encouraged them to value their work
commercially as well as spiritually, believing that by selling
paintings they could become independent while bringing indigenous
art to the attention of the wider community. By the time Bardon
left Papunya in mid-1972, the Painting Men had formed their
own company and the revolutionary Western Desert art movement
had begun. But for Bardon, the personal cost was enormous. Using
archival footage shot by Bardon himself, the filmmakers present
a compelling story of personal and political drama.
From 2000 to 2007,
Jacqueline van Rhyn was the Curator of Prints and Photographs
at The Print Center in Philadelphia. Since 2006, she has specialized
in Australian contemporary art, in particular the printed image.
She will discuss other art programs that have brought artmaking
to Australian indigenous communities and their success stories.
Tuesday,
April 6, 2010
Double Vision:
Grandma Moses + Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing
Introduced by
Stephen Huyler
Grandma Moses
dir. Jerome Hill,
US, 1950, video, 22 min, color
Grandma Moses is one
of the most important self-taught artists of the 20th century.
Born Anna Mary Robertson Moses, she started painting in her
70s, capturing scenes of rural celebrations and daily life in
upstate New York, where she lived most of her life. Unlike John
Kane, Horace Pippin, Morris Hirshfield and others of her generation,
she achieved a celebrity that far transcended the normal boundaries
of the folk art field. In the immediate post-WW II years, Moses
was one of the most successful and famous women in America and
arguably the first artist to become a media superstar.
In honor of her 90th
birthday, Jerome Hill released Grandma Moses, which
follows her through the seasons. The heir to a great American
railroad fortune, Hill was often dismissed as a millionaire
who dabbled in filmmaking. However, Academy-Award nominated
Grandma Moses was hailed as one of the most beautiful color
films about art and artists ever made.
followed by
Sonabai: Another
Way of Seeing
dirs. David Berez
and Jeffrey Wolf, US/India, 2009, video, 29 mins, color
For 15 years, Sonabai
Rajawar lived in near total isolation in her central Indian
village. Desperate loneliness drove her to populate the inside
of her home with extraordinary sculptures. Decades later, although
Sonabai was illiterate and untrained, she received national
and international attention and the highest awards India bestows
on an artist. Her unusual vision served as the agent of significant
social and economic improvement in her region. Sonabai’s story
echoes the urgent need of humanity to express itself creatively.
In the words of cultural anthropologist Stephen Huyler, "Sonabai
drew her inspiration from deep within her soul and she has never
sought recognition. The sole purpose of her art was to bring
solace and to balance the inequities that framed her existence."
Winner of the 2009 Santa Fe Film Festival’s Best Short Documentary
award, Sonabai: Another Way of Seeing reveals one woman's creative
vision in the face of oppressive adversity.
Stephen Huyler is
an art historian, cultural anthropologist, photographer and
author. After focusing on ritual Hinduism for the past decade,
he has recently returned to his original passion: women's art
and identity in India. Huyler eceived his BA in Indian Studies
at the University of Denver and then his doctorate at the University
of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
Tuesday,
May 11, 2010
Purvis
of Overtown
dir.
David Raccuglia and Shaun Conrad, US, 2006, 67 mins, DVD, color
Director
David Raccuglia and executive producer Matt Arnett
in person
After
serving a prison sentence for breaking and entering, Purvis
Young returned to Overtown, the Miami neighborhood of his youth.
During his incarceration he had taught himself to paint, and
in Overtown he began to chronicle almost obsessively its history
and multicultural flavor, its streets and characters, its anecdotes
of daily life, and its mythologies of survival. He soon transformed
a rundown street, referred to as Goodbread Alley by locals,
into an outdoor museum filled with his paintings. Over the last
forty years, Purvis Young has become a nationally acclaimed
artist whose impassioned style and keen eye are inseparable
from his sense of place. Screened at over twenty film festivals,
including the New York and Miami International Film Festivals,
this award-winning documentary offers a rare glimpse into the
life and work of a master painter.
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