James Tissot: L'étoffe d'un peintre

From Brooklyn to the Bronx, Soho to Greenwich, Union Square to Wall Street... Join us and the friends, collaborators and gallery owners who supported Jean-Michel Basquiat throughout his life. The first ever recognized graffiti artist, who saw international success as a neo-expressionist painter in the 80s, Basquiat is a true contemporary hero who died at the peak of his career.

Admirers of Lawren Harris, founding member of the iconic Group of Seven, discuss his paintings and his place in the pantheon of Canadian artists.

At work on his Elegies and Windows series, Motherwell examines his place in the Abstract Expressionist movement, which he calls the first original American movement in the "mainstream," and its practitioners "the last romantics." He distinguishes between his large paintings and his intimate papier collée. Motherwell recollects the state of American art in the 1940s and the impact of European emigré painters on the younger generation of emerging artists. He discusses the significance of collage, or papier collée, as an artist's medium and explains how he first became involved with this process. Motherwell offers his interpretations of earlier directions in art and his response to the object oriented painting that emerged in America in the 1960s. A unique document of one of the founding members of the New York School. He died in 1991.

“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.

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

"I especially hope to inspire young women, because I often feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman." Filmed in San Francisco in 2000, Margaret Kilgallen (1967-2001) discusses the female figures she incorporated into many of her paintings and graffiti tags. Loosely based on women she discovered while listening to folk records, watching buck dance videos, or reading about the history of swimming, Kilgallen painted her heroines to inspire others and to change how society looks at women. Three of Kilgallen's heroines—Matokie Slaughter, Algia Mae Hinton, and Fanny Durack—are shown and heard through archival recordings. Kilgallen is shown tagging train cars with her husband, artist Barry McGee, in a Bay Area rail yard and painting in her studio at UC Berkeley (source: Art21).

A documentary-style capturing of the life of Ab, a young struggling artist trying to find her way, all while dealing with unwanted company.

Moving Together is a celebratory love letter to music and dance that brims with kinetic life and energy. This documentary explores the intricate collaboration between dancers and musicians, moving seamlessly between Flamenco, Modern, and New Orleans Second Line.

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

"Elizabeth Murray: 4 Decades" tracks the artist's career and shows her moving forward fearlessly toward new shapes and concepts for her unique style of painting. Inspired by artists of the Abstract Expressionism movement such as Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston, Murray was privy to their technique and motive. Though she may share ideals with her artistic predecessors, Murray has created miraculously original work which she discusses with curator Robert Storr as they explore her MoMA retrospective.

An ambitious project manager is offered the career opportunity of a lifetime in London. But when she returns to her hometown to help the family business in an emergency and meets the perfect guy, her passion and talent for painting is rekindled, giving her a new outlook on life and love.

Encouraging visitors to engage and connect with on site artist's, Artpark provides a unique environment for those craving culture away from the whirring city. Located in Lewiston, New York the outdoor venue opens itself to artists, musicians and performers seeking a spot to reflect and create. During the summer seasons Artpark serves as an immersive experience, inviting the public to observe the artists as they work. Artpark People observes the vibrant scene and captures candid interactions between artist and onlookers. With a heavy emphasis on outdoor space and environmental influence, Artpark asserts itself as a cultural and communal haven for creatives.

Featuring notable Minimalist artists such as Bride Marden, Claes Oldenburg, and Donald Judd, What is Minimalism: The American Perspective 1958-1968 explores the movement during an explorative exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Los Angeles. Exhibition curator, Ann Goldstein, walks us through multiple rooms of the exhibit and offers her insight on Minimalism and its role in our society, stating that "It marked a fundamental, and critical and pivotal and irrevocable change in the course of art history," (Ann Goldstein). This film observes and analyzes the compelling creative choices behind some of the featured artists most applauded works of art.

A spirited artist with a mysterious bucket list gets a commission to paint a mural on a new hospital wing in a charming community. When she finds herself falling for the handsome architect designing the addition, she must decide if she can trust him with her list, and the painful memory behind it, or if he’ll break her heart and prove that it’s better to be alone than to be close to someone who will leave.

The Mona Lisa Myth

Lino Tagliapietra, considered by most as the greatest glassblower in history, is a mentor, motivator, and visionary. Bridging the divide between Italian and American glassblowing, Lino's career has transcended continents and inspired a new generation of glassblowers. Now 85, Lino continues to push the boundaries of the medium, testing the limits to see what both the material and the man can do.

This ninety-minute film takes audiences on an epic journey across nine countries and over 1,400 years of history. It explores themes such as the Word, Space, Ornament, Color and Water and presents the stories behind many great masterworks of Islamic Art and Architecture. Narrated by Academy Award winning performer Susan Sarandon, this dazzling documentary reveals the variety and diversity of Islamic art. It provides a window into Islamic culture and brings broad insights to the enduring themes that have propelled human history and fueled the rise of world civilization over the centuries

The Victorian era is often cited for its lack of sexuality, but as this documentary reveals, the period's artists created a strong tradition surrounding the classical nude figure, which spread from the fine arts to more common forms of expression. The film explains how 19th-century artists were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman works to highlight the naked form, and how that was reflected in the evolving cultural attitudes toward sex.

Through interviews and guerilla footage of graffiti writers in action on five continents, the documentary tells the story of graffiti from its origins in prehistoric cave paintings thru its notorious explosion in New York City during the 70’s and 80’s, then follows the flames as they paint the globe.

To be in Venice and see the architecture of New York, to perceive in a painting by Tintoretto the birth of animated images, to look at the burlesque Cretinetti as the ancestor of montage - so many shifts, displacements, and striking telescopings that Philippe-Alain Michaud proposes in this film dedicated to him. To follow this art historian, curator of the cinema collections at the Centre Pompidou, is to go from the oriental carpet to the film, or from the first fireworks to the cinema. And everywhere the animation of the images - projections of Antony McCall, or of Paul Sharits, Column without end of Brancusi, Pasolini's Accatone - everything moves! Under the tutelage of Aby Warburg, the great art historian of the early twentieth century, precursor of iconology and image comparison, to whom Philippe-Alain Michaud was the first in France to devote an important essay, eleven images are placed on the table to describe the singular journey of this art historian.