The Altruist

The Altruist (above) is a short documentary about artist Laurie Munn's adventure in found portraiture. Following a project where she painted portraits of all the Presidents of the United States, Munn began painting portraits of all 220 members of the graduating class from a 1965 yearbook she found in the trash.

One of her professors (at the time of the documentary's making, Munn was pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree) suggested she visit the school that the yearbook is from. At the school she runs into one of the 1965 graduates which sends her on a journey to track more of them down.

It's a fun documentary (though a bit ham-handed in its use of soundtrack)... and I enjoy seeing the artist's work expand from a fairly thin practice of painting portraits to a deeper, more interesting social-practice of seeking out the humanity behind the portraits.

Michael Kimmelman on Art

I just watched My Kid Could Paint That. It would make a great double-feature with Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? The two documentaries are flip-sides of the same coin--they both explore issues of authenticity, authorship, and art-world insiders/outsiders.

I suspect Amir Bar-Lev, who made My Kid Could Paint That, originally intended to use the story of the 4-year old painter (whose paintings were selling for upwards of $10-15k) as a narrative thread to explore "what is art" and the inconsistencies in the art world's psyche. However, that path becomes derailed when a 60 Minutes expose throws doubt on the the child as an artist. The documentary shift gears and becomes a self-referencing reflection on the documentarian's relationship with his subjects and the ethical dilemmas it poses.

In the documentary, Michael Kimmelman gave very straightforward, but enlightening overviews of the art-related issues raised. The DVD's special features also included "Michael Kimmelman on Art":