Because I was a Painter: Art and Artists that Survived the Concentration Camps

Josef Richter’s life could inspire a truly great narrative film. In 1943, the Polish resistance fighter knowingly infiltrated Sobibor with the express intention of documenting the horrors within. Since smuggling in a camera would be impractical, Richter smuggled out hand-drawings of concentration camp life. (Conveniently for screenwriters, almost nothing else is known about the rest of his life, leaving ample room for artistic license.) Although his intent was more journalistic than artistic, Richter is justly included in Christphe Cognet’s study of the art and artists that survived the Holocaust in Because I was a Painter (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Painters paint and sketch artists sketch. That is what they do, regardless where they might be. Therefore, the artists consigned to the National Socialist camps logically used their art to process the madness. Some sought beauty amid the terror, while others considered such attempts impossible. Indeed, this is the great pseudo-debate of Because, but it is hardly one viewers can join. After all, every artist profiled in the film came to their opinions by enduring the worst humanity can inflict on fellow human beings.

Obviously, the work featured in the film is extremely powerful and extreme in nature. Unfortunately, Cognet’s detached, slow cinema approach does not always serve his subject matter particularly well. He deliberately keeps the audience at arm’s length, interspersing his interviews with long, drawn-out tracking shots of the former camp sites that now look deceptively peaceful and overgrown by nature.

Yes, time moves forward, but the past can still haunt the present (and the future). More narrative structure and more context would increase our understanding of the artists Cognet profiles. Some pieces, such as Dinah Gottliebova’s portraits of Mengele’s experiment subjects (previously documented in Hilary Helstein’s more aesthetically conventional As Seen Through These Eyes), need the barest of background to be fully appreciated. For the most part though, their work literally speaks for itself.

Indeed, the work of the artists surveyed is so powerful precisely because it incorporates art as it is ideally understood, as well as a form of journalistic documentation and a method of asserting one’s existence. There are many valuable sequences and riveting oral histories in the film, but Cognet’s stylistic severity is sometimes counter-productive. Even though it can be frustrating, it is still good that we have this film. Recommended for students of art and history, Because I was a Painter opens today (4/24) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza.

Herb & Dorothy 50x50: Minimalist Art for All

Herb and Dorothy Vogel might be the most significant American art collectors since Albert C. Barnes. Of course, the minimalist and conceptual art they collected was worlds removed from the Barnes Foundation’s early modern and impressionist masterpieces.  The Vogels also had very different ideas regarding the fate of their collection.  Through the National Gallery of Art, the Vogels launched an initiative to donate fifty works of art to a fitting museum in every state.  Filmmaker Megumi Sasaki revisits the Vogels, documenting their remarkable philanthropic undertaking in Herb & Dorothy 50x50 (trailer here), which opens this Friday at the IFC Center.

In her previous doc, Sasaki told the Vogels’ origin story.  Since the 1960’s, the Vogels lived off her librarian’s salary, using his postal worker’s pay to acquire their collection.  Early adopters of minimalism, the Vogels were the first collector of many cutting edge artists.  They only bought what they could afford and somehow fit in their one bedroom apartment.

Almost reaching 5,000 pieces in size, the Vogels eventually decided to bestow their collection upon the NGA, but given the obvious limitations of gallery space, they ultimately agreed to the Fifty Works for Fifty States project.  Representative Vogel Collections in miniature would be donated to regional museums that would otherwise be hard pressed to acquire such works.

As the Vogels’ NGA advisor points out, there is precedent for such a wide-ranging gift to the nation’s museums.  The old masters collection of five-and-dime store magnate Samuel H. Kress now resides in forty-one states, which is not the Vogels’ full fifty, but is still pretty impressive.

Much of Sasaki’s follow-up doc grants the Vogels their victory lap, traveling with them to openings in several states.  While these sequences can get a tad repetitive, it is intriguing to see how each museum engages with the work in their Vogel packages.  For instance, the Hawaiian pieces appear to have a particularly high degree of white space, which is a challenge for both curators and visitors, yet they have been notably industrious building programming around their collection.

Sadly, viewers also sense the realities of time and age for the Vogels that ultimately gives the film its narrative structure.  Somehow though, the tone never feels maudlin, paying tribute rather jerking tears.  Given the extent of the film dedicated to the Fifty for Fifty project, the appeal of Sasaki’s second Vogel doc might be largely limited to fans of the first.  Nonetheless, if viewers are interested, 50x50 is the only game in town, executed by Sasaki with scrupulous sensitivity and a good measure of style (quite so by documentary industry standards).  In fact, David Majzlin upbeat score propels the proceedings along rather nicely.

By following the Vogels, Sasaki gives the audience a pleasant tour of American fine art museums that are often overlooked because they happen to be in fly-over country.  She also effectively showcases the Vogel pieces, conveying the breadth and diversity of the collection.  One of the more emotionally satisfying art docs, Herb & Dorothy 50x50 is recommended for art connoisseurs and fans of the original Herb & Dorothy when it opens tomorrow (9/13) in New York at the IFC Center.

Music and Textiles: A Weaverly Path

As a child, the Swiss-born Silvia Heyden shared meals with refugees from National Socialist Germany and would later cross over from East to West Berlin just as the wall was nearly completed. Yet, the greatest inspiration for her innovative tapestries has been the Eno River in peaceful Durham, North Carolina. Heyden’s life and work are profiled in Kenny Dalsheimer’s A Weaverly Path (trailer here), which screens this coming Tuesday at the Missouri History Museum.

Heyden might be the tapestry artist of her time, period. Never merely adapting pre-existing paintings from canvas to textile, Heyden conceives each piece specifically for her medium. Thread by thread, her kinetic forms takes shape on her loom. They do not always hang straight, but her use of color and form are always intriguing.

Though we do observe Heyden’s methodical work up-close, unlike Sophie Fienne’s slow-going Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, Weaverly never assumes watching an artist quietly putter about their studio for long stretches of time is sufficiently explanatory or engrossing. In fact, we hear Heyden give her basic primer on tapestry as an art form, which should deepen viewers’ appreciation not just of her work, but of her medium in general.

Though rarely heard on-screen, Dalsheimer draws out the artist quite deftly. He clearly establishes her influences, including a supportive father (himself a frustrated artist) and a Bauhaus education, without driving each point into the ground. Rivers are also important touchstones in her life, with Rhone prefiguring the Eno as a source of inspiration. Yet, music is nearly as significant as nature in shaping her art. In fact, her two arguable masterworks, Passacaglia and Chaconne, directly reference the baroque music she still plays with her string ensemble.

Appropriately enough, Weaverly has a beautiful soundtrack, consisting largely of music licensed from the Brooklyn-based AUM Fidelity label (in addition to Heyden’s own playing) that impeccably matches the film’s striking visuals and contemplative mood. Particularly effective are the selections from jazz pianist-composer Eri Yamamoto, including “Circular Movement,” a duo recording with Hamid Drake that perfectly evokes the rhythms of Heyden’s loom. Originally conceived as a part of a new soundtrack for Yasujirō Ozu’s silent classic I Was Born But . . ., the jaunty “A Little Escape” also helps propels the film along nicely, while the richly melodic “Thank You” (another duo track, with Federico Ughi) establishes a relaxed but sophisticated vibe.

Artfully crafted in its own right, Weaverly is one of the more accessible and engaging art documentaries currently on the festival circuit (featuring one of the best soundtracks). Recommended for its sights and sounds, as well as Heyden’s smart, likable presence, Weaverly screens Tuesday afternoon (9/13) as part of the Missouri History Museum’s History on the Side series, where its sixty-two minutes will be worth stretching St. Louisans’ lunch hours.

(Eri Yamamoto photo by Rita Cigolini)

Kiefer’s Barjac: Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

For the better part of the 2000’s, the German artist Anselm Kiefer’s studio would not have been OSHA compliant. Safety goggles and closed-toed shoes probably should have been required at all times. Fortunately though, he was encamped in an abandoned factory outside of Barjac in Southern France, operating without interference from workplace inspectors. Redefining conventional notions of artistic medium, Kiefer used the buildings and surrounding landscape as his canvas for a grandly conceived multi-disciplinary installation. Sophie Fiennes documented Anselm as he added the finishing touches to his Barjac project in Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday at New York’s Film Forum.

In many ways, Grass is much like Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Michael Madsen’s Into Eternity, artfully recreating the experience of exploring an otherworldly environment here on Earth. Shot in CinemaScope, Grass's long tracking shots of the Barjac tunnels, corridors, galleries, and arcades would more readily lend themselves to a 3-D fix-up than flat tent-poles like Clash of the Titans. Indeed, watching Fiennes’ film is the closest most of us will come to walking through a Dali landscape. Particularly striking are the scenes of his enormous concrete towers, leaning precariously like ancient Jenga constructions.

Sister of actors Ralph and Joseph, Sophie Fiennes (born Sophia Victoria Twisleton Wykeham-Fiennes) takes far too observational an approach, when her subject matter begs for more background commentary. Despite the walking tour style explorations of the Barjac site, viewers never get a comprehensive sense of the overall shape of things. Even more problematic, we get very little by way of an explanation for Kiefer’s bold undertaking. When the artist happens to mention around the midpoint the Biblical story of Lilith, the outcast woman living in ruins, originally inspired his so-called “Gesamtkunstwerk,” it comes as a revelation, altering our entire perception of the project. Frankly, given the nature of the work, the more context viewers get, the better they would be able to appreciate it.

Indeed, far too much of Grass is devoted to scenes of Kiefer and his associates deliberately breaking panes of glass (while he alarmingly putters around in flip-flops) and moving huge paintings about his hanger-like workshop with cranes. While it quickly gets repetitive, at least it proves Kiefer is still very much a hands-on artist, not simply delegating the fabrication process to a staff of artisans.

While there is an extended interview sequence (seemingly captured as part of Kiefer’s regular routine as a semi-celebrity figure), his interlocutor never really draws out the reserved artist. Still, Fiennes and cinematographer Remko Schnoor capture some striking visuals, which she marries quite effectively to the music of György Ligeti and Jörg Widmann. Indeed, Ligeti, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor whose compositions can be heard in several Kubrick’s films, is an especially apt choice, given Kiefer’s early work directly (if somewhat ironically) addresses the National Socialist era of German history.

Grass is at its best when immersing viewers in the imposing grandeur of Kiefer’s Barjac Gesamtkunstwerk. However, it should have deigned to directly tell the audience more of the what’s and why’s of it all, rather than simply showing the how’s. Fascinating and frustrating in nearly equal measure, Grass is better experienced on the big screen, so those fascinated by Kiefer’s work and such site specific architectural installations in general should check it out at Film Forum, where it opens this Wednesday (8/10).

Daalder at AFA: Here is Always Somewhere Else

Ambitious performance art “happenings” can be dangerous. Dutch-born artist Bas Jan Ader planned a grand climatic reception when he set off across the Atlantic in what would have been the smallest craft to accomplish the solo journey. Tragically, the boat made it, but Ader was lost at sea. Rene Daalder plumbs the significance of his friend’s life and death in Here is Always Somewhere Else (trailer here), which screens during the upcoming Daalder retrospective at the Anthology Film Archives.

Like Daalder, Ader immigrated from the Calvinist high north of Holland, to pursue an artistic career in Los Angeles. Both made names for themselves, following somewhat idiosyncratic paths. However, the story of Ader’s father looms particularly heavily over his son’s life. Bas Jan Ader, Sr. was a priest executed during WWII by the National Socialists for harboring Dutch Jews. Ader, Jr. was only two years old at the time. However, Daalder eventually draws some intriguing parallels between the Aders (not involving the father’s resistance heroics).

Leaving behind a relatively slim body of work, primarily experimental films and photos often featuring the artist falling victim to gravity, Ader is an enigmatic figure, even to those who knew him best. Yet, Daalder nicely places him in the context of the Dutch art of his time and the expat milieu. Indeed, for Daalder, Ader’s metaphysical inscrutability becomes part of his essence.

Somewhere has a poetic quality that will come as a jarring shift of gears compared to the VR animation and exploitation subversion that distinguishes so much of Daalder’s filmography. He and co-editor Aaron Ohlmann integrate Ader’s films and images in smartly evocative ways. The quietly authoritative quality of Daalder’s only slightly accented English narration is also rather effective. Arguably, it is one of the more artistic documentaries about art and artists, far more accomplished than many of the recent art-related docs which aired on Independent Lens (including the Oscar-nominated Waste Land).

Unlike some of Daalder’s films that will probably appeal more to a cult audience (which evidently includes myself), Somewhere can hang with any exclusive art-house documentary. It is a challenging, culturally literate film that well serves the reputation of both subject and filmmaker. Definitely recommended, it screens this Saturday (6/11) as the Daalder series continues at AFA.

Art Month on Independent Lens: Waste Land

Brooklyn-based Vik Muniz takes understandable pride in his status as Brazil’s most collectable contemporary artist. Whatever captures his interest will eventually become a topic of conversation in the gallery world. When Muniz turned to Rio’s Jardim Gramacho landfill (the largest in the world) for inspiration, it also commanded the attention of filmmaker Lucy Walker, who documented the project in her Academy Award nominated Waste Land (trailer here), which airs next week as part of a month of art-related documentaries programmed by PBS’s Independent Lens.

Like Egypt’s Zaballeen, Rio has a small marginalized class of garbage “pickers” who eke out a living salvaging recyclables from the landfill. Needless to say, this takes a toll on their self-esteem and social standing. It is these lumpenproletariats Muniz sought to directly involve in his project.

After a few days of taking in Jardim Gramacho’s festering spectacle, Muniz started choosing his subject-helpers and raw recycled materials. After photographing a number of pickers, both at work and in his studio, Muniz projected giant outlines of their portraits on the floor of his studio, which the pickers used as an outline to fill in with the objects from the landfill. The resulting mosaics were then photographed and printed, so Muniz could whisk them away to an auction in London (the proceeds from which went to the pickers’ start-up mutual aid society).

To its credit, Waste does not duck the issues raised by Muniz’s grand scheme. Several within Muniz’s inner circle directly question the wisdom of temporarily employing the pickers and possibly even taking them to London for the auction, only to dump them back at Jardim Gramacho once the project had run its course. Also, given the extent of the pickers’ hands-on involvement, one might also debate how appropriate it is to attribute the pieces to Muniz. However, unlike a Jeff Coons, in addition to directing the process from above, Muniz shot the original photos (often conceived as pastiches to famous paintings, such as Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat) and he can also be seen adding graphite shadings, for what might be deemed the artistic touch.

People are not recyclable. Walker seems to get this. Though she clearly embraces the environmental implications of Muniz’s work, she never fetishizes the pickers’ way of life simply because they recycle, unlike Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander’s highly problematic documentary portrait of the Zaballeen. Indeed, Walker and Muniz both seem to understand it would highly desirable if the Jardim Gramacho workers could find cleaner, less wearying employment elsewhere.

Wisely, Walker keeps the human element front-and-center in Waste. However, Moby’s electro-ambient soundtrack sounds oddly sterile for a film about garbage and conveys no sense of the Brazilian favelas where the pickers live. Despite its environmental preoccupations, Waste is a reasonably interesting behind-the-scenes look at a large-scale contemporary art project. Viewers can watch the Oscar nominee on free TV this coming Tuesday (4/19) as part of the current season of Independent Lens.