William Kentridge and Marlene Dumas – two of the most celebrated names in international contemporary art – come face to face in a series of frank, witty and intense discussions about their work and practice. The film follows them from the gentle ambience of a dinner conversation, to their studios – where we are given insight into the way that each artist works – to some of their finished works and installations. What emerges is how very differently these two highly successful South African artists approach image making. Dumas’ method is deeply intuitive – she often works on the floor as though embracing her paintings, pouring and dabbing paint to produce her remarkable portraits. Kentridge is intensely systematic, alternating gestural mark making with the repetitive action of drawing-filming-erasing for his animated films.
Marlene Dumas
Sexy supermodels Tyra Banks, Valeria Mazza, Kathy Ireland, Stacey Williams, Ingrid Seynhaeve, Rebecca Romijn, Angie Everhart, Manon von Gerkan and newcomer Georgianna Robertson hit South Africa for the 1996 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
Leonardo da Vinci is acclaimed as the world’s favourite artist. Many TV shows and feature films have showcased this extraordinary genius but often not examined closely enough is the most crucial element of all: his art. Leonardo’s peerless paintings and drawings will be the focus of Leonardo: The Works, as EXHIBITION ON SCREEN presents every single attributed painting, in Ultra HD quality, never seen before on the big screen. Key works include The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Lady with an Ermine, Ginevra de’ Benci, Madonna Litta, Virgin of the Rocks, and more than a dozen others.
She was a prolific self-portraitist, using the canvas as a mirror through all stages of her turbulent and, at times, tragic life. This highly engaging film takes us on a journey through the life of one of the most prevalent female icons: Frida Kahlo. Displaying a treasure trove of colour and a feast of vibrancy on screen, this personal and intimate film offers privileged access to her works and highlights the source of her feverish creativity, her resilience and her unmatched lust for life, men, women, politics and her cultural heritage.
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.
While her husband served a life sentence, paradoxically kept safe and morally uncontaminated, Winnie Mandela rode the raw violence of apartheid, fighting on the front line and underground. This is the untold story of the mysterious forces that combined to take her down, labeling him a saint, her, a sinner.
In a remote stretch of Patagonia, Argentina, there is a family - the Dickasons - who speak a language from a country 7,000km to the east. They are part of a 114-year-old Afrikaans Boer community - South Africans of Dutch descent who sailed across the ocean to South America after the destruction of a war with the British. Today, less than 50 still speak the language and they struggle to keep their culture alive. Patriarch "Ty" Dickason, 82, is a cowboy who has never flown in a plane - and yet he yearns to one day visit the country of his blood before he and his compatriots pass away. This multiple SAFTA award-winning documentary is a portrait of the last days of the community - a parallel world where Afrikaans was never linked to Apartheid - and one family's journey to reconnect with South Africa.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
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.
How do white South Africans deal with their fears of crime and violence? Like crocodiles, some survive without evolving, living with their fears. Others make fear their friend and evolve in ways you'd never imagine.
Exhibition on Screen's latest release celebrates the life and masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch brought together from around the world to his hometown in the Netherlands as a one-off exhibition. With exclusive access to the gallery and the show, this stunning film explores this mysterious, curious, medieval painter who continues to inspire today's creative geniuses. Over 420,000 people flocked to the exhibition to marvel at Bosch's bizarre creations but now, audiences can enjoy a front row seat at Bosch's extraordinary homecoming from the comfort of their own home anywhere in the world. Expert insights from curators and leading cultural critics explore the inspiration behind Bosch's strange and unsettling works. Close-up views of the curiosities allow viewers to appreciate the detail of his paintings like never before. Bosch's legendary altarpieces, which have long been divided among museums, were brought back together for the exhibition and feature in the film.
Julie Mendez was a 17 year old teenager when she saw the "be all that you can be" Army recruiting messaging and decided to enlist. Her life would change forever when she was deployed to serve in the Iraq War. Her experiences changed her and she returned home to face feelings of isolation and depression. Always a creative person, Julie turned to art to help her process her experiences and begin to heal her PTSD.
In 2024, the iconic Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Gerrit Rietveld designed and built the house in close collaboration with his secret lover and creative partner Truus Schröder. Rietveld himself did not build his houses for eternity; he thought a life cycle of 50 years was sufficient. But the current owners of houses designed by Rietveld think differently about this. They pull out all the stops to renovate and preserve their Rietveld houses.
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.
An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.
This documentary follows 200 days in the life of contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto— a leading presence in the world of modern art. He is the winner of many prestigious awards and his photographs are sold for millions of yen at overseas auctions. The film shows the sites of the Architecture series shot in southern France, the huge installation art work at 17th Biennale of Sydney, his new work Mathematics at Provence, his art studio while working on Lightning Fields, and more. It thoroughly pursues the question Sugimoto's works pose - "living in modern times, what are these works trying to tell us?" A thrilling look into the world of Hiroshi Sugimoto.
The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.
Keith Haring: The Message was released in conjunction with the Keith Haring retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Directed by famed designer, Madonna stylist and Haring confidante Maripol, The Message goes pretty deep into both the artist and the city and times he’ll forever be identified with: New York City, circa the 1980s. The focus, as the title indicates, is upon the “struggles that animated” Keith Haring’s work, his activism – in a word, his “message.”
The concrete costs for culture and creativity is here illustrated in punchy images.
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.