Arts My Kid Could Paint That: The Movie
posted by on August 17 at 9:30 AM
The City by Marla Olmstead
So a 4-year-old cranks out big abstract paintings, some people buy them for thousands of dollars, other people gloat about the sham of modern art, and, inevitably, doubt is raised over whether the 4-year-old is getting help on her paintings from one of her parents. Sounds simple enough, and like something that has happened plenty of times before.
But Amir Bar-Lev’s new documentary, My Kid Could Paint That, is a mystery. (It will open this fall in Seattle; I saw an early screening today.) Bar-Lev travels so far into the center of the situation that he makes the human lust for “real” art—especially in a context where everybody declares that they know nothing about art—seem suspect, vain, and almost criminal, while at the same time utterly natural.
The film closes with a Bob Dylan song:
Someday, everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece.
Or, everything is gonna be different when you find a masterpiece, connect with it, and somehow make it yours, either by buying it or simply recognizing it, seeing it, and having it see you. Doesn’t everybody feel that way at least a little bit?
The toddler’s name is Marla Olmstead. She lives in Binghamton, N.Y., with her brother Zane, who is two years younger than she is, and her parents, Laura, a dental assistant, and Mark, an amateur painter and night manager at a Frito-Lay factory.
The first note I made in my notebook was about Marla’s art dealer, Anthony Brunelli. He introduced the family by describing every member as “perfect,” especially Marla and Zane, who “could be in Gap ads.”
Brunelli is probably the most unsavory character in the film. But he is the most revealing, too. Through all the twists and family dynamics—according to that footage, it looks like Marla made that painting, but according to this footage, it looks like she didn’t, but …—Brunelli looms in the background. He extols Marla’s genius on “60 Minutes” and praises the beauty of her paintings to his clients.
But he also divulges, when he’s exhausted of the publicity and when sales have slowed down because of the questioning, that he doesn’t like modern art. That he thinks it’s a “scam.” That it’s only through marketing that abstract art gains meaning. (Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times comes damn close to agreeing with Brunelli on this point, making the analogy to the relationship between Jackson Pollock’s raging persona and his wild paintings.)
Of course, by that logic, then, Brunelli is in the middle of perpetrating his own scam: selling Marla instead of the paintings. But Brunelli reveals more. We see him making his own photorealistic paintings, spending hours on details that the art world will not appreciate.
With Marla, “now, finally, I’ve got a way in,” Brunelli says.
The tensions between husband and wife, toddler and camera, are gripping. And there are deliciously painful sequences involving stereotypically clueless, Humvee-driving rich collectors that serve as reminders that, like laws, you don’t want to see how the art market is made. Or maybe you do.
By the end of the film, the biggest question is not about whether Marla has made the paintings alone, but whether the documentarian, Bar-Lev, will reveal to the family that he has his doubts. He so badly wants to believe, but he can’t get Marla making a painting from start to finish, and that missing footage becomes the magnetic black hole at the center of the movie. It’s the hole at the center of art, too—what exactly is in there, and why does it have such sway over us? When is it real, and when is it bullshit? What is it made of? Can it even be caught on film?
When the movie comes, watch it. It’s terrific.
Thank you for the heads up. I'll definitely have to see this when its out.
It looks like you posted this yesterday at 9:30, too - but I don't remember seeing it then. Very strange.
Oh hell, several years ago I bought that big book called "Why Cats Paint." Cats have, apparently, been making art for years so what's new about a four-year-old human doing it? Really?
Very interesting review, I remember that 60 Minutes piece. It was pretty unbelievable. I just watched "Who the @#$%^ is Jackson Pollock?", which also lays bare what bags of wind art experts are. I didn't want to believe the painting in it was real either, but basically it came down to was 'I know art when I see it' and screw scientific evidence to the contrary. At least the people getting fleeced are as unsavory as the dealers - pretty much a victimless crime.
Art is not about skill, thats called a trade. Its also not about the artist, thats called a biography.
Art is at its core a medium by which we perceive and contemplate things. The preeminent art of an age is not there becasue it is highly skilled, but because it says something about the time in which it was made.
I completely agree, #5. That's why the vast majority of modern art is vacuous nonsense.
Ummm...#3, that book is a put-on, but excellent nonetheless. If you enjoyed it, I recommend the sequels: Why Paint Cats? and my favorite, Dancing with Cats.
Regarding abstract art - no, it is not a sham, and yes, anybody can do it. But just like "traditional" art, it takes talent to do it well. To best understand abstract art, try to imagine the first time you saw a tree. If you weren't aware that it was a tree, then it was nothing but an "abstract " shape to you. It is only through learning about trees and what they "look" like that you came to understand a tree and could appreciate its beauty. Ditto with abstract art. Abstract art is a purely human invention - it has no reference to anything else. Therefore, you could legitimately claim that it is is the only pure art, and all other types of art (painting) are copies.
@6 but do we not live in age of vacuous nonsense?
@6, not sure how but I misread your post and did not realize you had already made the point I made, but apparently too cleverly for my morning brain to understand.
Is Smoosh on the soundtrack? Prussian Blue? Jon Benet?
Oooh, I can't wait to see this. Good review.
I paint all the time....mostly stuff using figures in some way, which I am fairly decent at. But I have to say, the times I've tried to do abstract (for lack of a better word) stuff, I've failed miserably. It's very hard to do a good abstract painting.
p.s. Did anyone see the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where the mother makes an abstract sculpture that looks just like a vagina?
I guarantee you are the only person who read this article who has wasted at least a half hour of their lives watching Everybody Loves Raymond...
actually they are probably the only ones to admit it.
Whether or not people are cajoled into paying outrageous sums for art that may or may not the high art they desire is one thing (hey, if you like it, buy it!), but the tone of many of these stories (like the 60 Minutes episode) that this very act is somehow turning the art world on its ear by questioning the very heart of what makes art great is totally off the mark.
You can create buzz, you can get high prices, but you can't buy relevance... and not to demean a young artist or painting cat or whatever, but none these recent examples have ever achieved any lasting relevance.
I'll keep an eye out for this one. The trailer looked really interesting.
she creates her art here and sells it for millions...
http://jacksonpollock.org/
now, you too can be a high society arteest. see you at the thea-tuh!
Is it bad that before I scrolled down, my first reaction was "Wow, what a neat painting"?
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