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In this documentary Kerkhof takes the viewer into a bizarre underworld, the sub-culture of blood art and body piercing performance art. Kerkhof's camera registered a performance by the American blood artist Ron Athey which took place during the FREAK ZONE festival in Lille, France in May 1997. The camerawork is so freaky one would almost suspect it is under the influence of heroin. The film includes interviews with Athey as well as shocking live fragments wherein Athey works his face over with injection needles. The crazy, maniacal clamour of the HIV positive priest/performer gives us insights into the motives and goals of this group of masochistic performance artists. Somebody who entertains his audience by cutting and stabbing himself; is this art? Who can say? What is beyond question is that Kerkhof's masterful use of the camera and editing not only obscures the images but also the boundary between art and unbearable filth.
Ron Athey

With a pair of scissors and some paper, he turned his art into a weapon the Nazis feared. A look back at the eventful career of satirist John Heartfield (1891-1968), pioneer of photomontage and modern graphic design.
2023
Joe Brainard (1941-1994) was an artist particularly noted for his work in collage and comics. Brainard’s artistic career took off during his teenaged years in Tulsa, Oklahoma where, along with Ron Padgett and Dick Gallup, he produced The White Dove Review, an art and culture magazine. Both Brainard and Padgett serendipitously moved together to New York City, where Brainard was a prolific artist whose work was showcased in varied spaces such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. He also frequently collaborated with members of the New York School of Poets, supplying book and cover art and bringing to life visual representations of poetry. Brainard’s writing also received acclaim, particularly his 1975 memoir I Remember.
Joe Brainard (1941-1994) was an artist particularly noted for his work in collage and comics. Brainard’s artistic career took off during his teenaged years in Tulsa, Oklahoma where, along with Ron Padgett and Dick Gallup, he produced The White Dove Review, an art and culture magazine. Both Brainard and Padgett serendipitously moved together to New York City, where Brainard was a prolific artist whose work was showcased in varied spaces such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum. He also frequently collaborated with members of the New York School of Poets, supplying book and cover art and bringing to life visual representations of poetry. Brainard’s writing also received acclaim, particularly his 1975 memoir I Remember.

Discover the extraordinary life and art of John Craxton in this captivating documentary feature. From early success with Lucian Freud to his vibrant years in Greece and Crete, Craxton’s bold, colorful paintings mirrored his passionate personal life and relationships with icons like Lee Miller and Margot Fonteyn. This film unveils how his artistic genius and unconventional lifestyle cemented his legacy as one of the most celebrated English artists of the 20th century.
2023

Norval Morrisseau was the first Indigenous Canadian artist to be taken seriously in the art world. By the turn of this century his work commanded tens of thousands of dollars. So when Barenaked Ladies keyboardist Kevin Hearn learned his prized painting was a forgery, he sued. But as Jamie Kastner's doc reveals, there was a cottage industry in fake Morrisseaus, an industry that flourished unchecked for years, feeding on greed, exploitation, racism and contempt.
2019

H*ART ON dives off the deep end of modern art. A film about the yearning to create, to mould everyday emotions into a meaningful life and, most of all, to live beyond one's death. A struggle that gets to the existential core of each of us. How do you find meaning in everyday fear, love, sex and loneliness?
2017

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerising film is a feast for the eyes. The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.
2017
A short documentary on how people view art and its value in today's society.
2017

2014

A journey into the hearts, minds and eyes of Georgia O’Keeffe, Emily Carr and Frida Kahlo - three of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists.
2011

Anton Spielmann (18) and his two younger friends Basti Muxfeldt and Jonas Hinnerkort are living in their family homes with their parents in an idyllic village close to Hamburg. The three of them founded the band 1000 Robota. The band has an ambitious aim: „We want to cause creation not to remind of it”, and they want to live up to their ideals. In a society affected by economic pressure 1000 Robota are questioning themselves and others and they don‘t want to meet other people‘s expectations. In a world of excessive supply they are looking for significance and want to unite with others to create a new way of youth culture. But soon they have to face some serious difficulties.
2011

Narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi - star of the landmark television series "I, Claudius" - this documentary explores art and culture around the Bay of Naples before Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. The bay was then the most fashionable destination for vacationing Romans. Julius Caesar, emperors, and senators were among those who owned sumptuous villas along its shores. Artists flocked to the region to create frescoes, sculpture, and luxurious objects in gold, silver, and glass for villa owners as well as residents of Pompeii and other towns in the shadow of Vesuvius. The film concludes with the story of the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum from the 18th century onward.
2008

Meet the men, including the man claiming to have the World's biggest penis, who reveal there is a bittersweet side to nature's gift, and who lift the veil on a taboo subject and to show the reality of what it's like to have what all men dream of.
2006

Pleasures of the eye, David Hockney’s work has shown him to be one of the most versatile and influential artists of our time. The British artist invites the observer to take a visual stroll through his paintings and explore the dimensions of time and space. In communicating a new sense of the spacetime continuum, he injects the medium of photography with entirely new and living components. His sensuous theatre sets make us hear music with our eyes and see colours with our ears. The documentary filmmaker Gero von Böhm paints a memorable portrait of a fascinating artist, whose work allows all of us to see the magic in the small and seemingly insignificant details of everyday life.
1997

New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.
1994

“Christo: Works in Progress” takes us around the world on a showcase of the artist’s grand environmental installations. With both critique and praise from members of the communities that have hosted Christo and his works, the film takes a deep look into the process and outcome of pieces such as Wrapped Coast, Running Fence, and Wrapped Walkways. While discussing his inspirations and motives, Christo states, “The work of art is not the fabric, steel poles and cable, the work of art is the hills and the ocean, the sky, the gates, the rocks, the people, the light- this is the work of art.” (Christo Vladimirov Javacheff) Though his work may appear to be visually distracting from the landscapes he creates in, Christo’s aim is to bring attention to the land itself and encourage people to take note of their surroundings.
1974

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.
1971

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.
1970

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."
1964

Pop Goes the Easel was Ken Russell’s first full-length documentary for the BBC’s arts series Monitor. It focused on 4 British Pop Artists - Peter Blake, Peter Philips, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.
1962