Contemplate the "anti-art" spirit of Dadaism, its nihilistic yet humorous indictment of civilization and bizarre use of unconventional media. In the sensibility of Surrealism, observe its compelling focus on the subconscious and two substyles - dream imagery, with its juxtaposition of objects and settings, and "automatic drawing," eliciting unplanned images from the unconscious.
The first collaboration between Matthew Barney & Elizabeth Peyton, Blood of Two is a unique, site-specific work that draws its references from Hydra itself – the surrounding environment, animals, humans, and local traditions are all part of the project in equal measure.
Blood of Two centers on the former function of the Slaughterhouse and the customs of Hydra to establish connections between paganism and religion, ancient and modern, the ritualistic and familiar. As much as its conflicted terms strive for balance and fusion, it is Blood of Two’s greater resistance to these impulses, its failure to surrender unconditionally to them that ultimately counts, as a network of overlaps and crisscrosses.
A short film with shots of sculptures by Anneke Walvoort. The materiality of film plays an important role: visible grain, flashes of colour, unexpected camera movements.
“The artist, in his movement towards the ideal, upsets the stability of any one society. Society aspires to achieve stability; the artist aims for infinity. That is the artist’s responsibility and the spiritual sacrifice demanded of him.” Rui Chafes, O Perfume das Buganvílias, 2012 (19).
The Wall Street stock trader were astonished when they passed at a five-metre bronze statue of a bull on there way to work on December 16, 1989. Also New York's Mayor and city administration wondering who had placed the three-ton work of art there. One of the most unusual and imaginative artists of our time was behind the action: the Sicilian-born Arturo Di Modica. This is the story of the statue, which became a symbol of Wall Street.
Nothing destined this child born in Marseille in 1921, and from a modest background, to become an avant-garde artist. At 12 years old, the one who is still called César Baldaccini works to help his father, but also studies drawing. In 1943, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Beaux-Arts. He chose sculpture, an expensive art for this penniless student. From the 1950s, he shaped fine animals from metal debris collected in factories. This alloy between his Mediterranean imagination and these industrial materials earned him the attention of Picasso. But in 1960, this instinct, now in vogue, brought about a radical change. Fascinated by hydraulic presses, he presented three compressed cars at the Salon de Mai. The artist stands aside in front of the machine, and the morbid aesthetic of the breakage radiates the sculpture. Outcry!
The sculptor Sergio Camargo died 20 years ago. If the bones left in the grave are in fact his remains, would his sculptures be living remains? What's ephemeral and what's lasting? Is there a possible eternity? We see the movie through the eyes of the daughter confronting both the artist and the man.
Winter, 1915. Confined by her family to an asylum in the South of France - where she will never sculpt again - the chronicle of Camille Claudel's reclusive life, as she waits for a visit from her brother, Paul Claudel.
An essay style film in the vein of Orson Welles' "F For Fake" and Jon Jost's "Speaking Directly". From 2011 to 2013, filmmaker Kristian Day randomly documented the art and actions of the award winning metal sculptor, James Bearden. Refusing to make another artist documentary, Day insisted on illustrating Bearden's creative process through surreal and id oriented story telling.
A biographical documentary about Moisés Avendaño, artist, athlete, sportsman, adventurer, and doctor from Veracruz, Mexico. Seen from his golden years, until his imminent encounter with Parkinson's disease, in the present.
Bjørn Nørgaard and a team of Czech glass artists in the demanding process of creating a grave monument for Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark.
The documentary Carving the Divine offers a rare and intimate look into the life and artistic process of modern-day Busshi – practitioners of a 1400 year lineage of woodcarving that’s at the heart of Japanese, Mahayana Buddhism.
A project about the architectural, cultural, and social heritage of the city of Buenos Aires. An investigation about the enigmatic "Casa del Angel", a castle that used to belong to Dr. Carlos Delcasse, and the winged figure in one of its balconies that attracted the attention of all the neighbors: the sculpture of an Angel, which disappeared after the demolition of the house.
During the 1980 exhibition of Burden's monumental kinetic sculpture The Big Wheel at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, Burden and Feldman were interviewed by art critic Willoughby Sharp. Burden articulates the process of creating The Big Wheel, a 6,000-pound, spinning cast-iron flywheel that is initially powered by a motorcycle, and discusses its relation to his earlier performance pieces and sculptural works. Addressing his motivations and the meaning of this potentially dangerous mechanical art object, Burden discusses such topics as the role of the artist in the industrial world, "personal insanity and mass insanity," and "man's propensity towards violence."
Experimental short film that mix drawings of Jean-Luc Chansay's daughter with computer animation and sculptures of Marie Mercier.
A docudrama about art and creativity; based on modern art gallery in Tehran and its founder Jazeh Tabatabai.
The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.
The Sculpture 100 is a journey through one hundred public sculptures made across one hundred years. In 1905, Thomas Brock and Aston Webb began work on their final grand celebration of Victoria Regina, the Victoria Memorial, at one end of London's Mall. A century later, Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant sits triumphant on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. This is a film about these, and ninety-eight other distinctive, significant, quirky, glorious public sculptures made for England in the century in between.