Friday, November 2, 2007

dvd: the collector:allen stone's life in art

netflix blurb:
Filmmaker Olympia Stone presents a cinematic portrait of her father, famed New York City gallery owner and art collector Allan Stone, in this fascinating documentary tracing his rise in the international art world from the 1950s to 2006. Regarded as a pioneering collector, Allan Stone was considered an expert on the work of Abstract Expressionists, particularly Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline.

liked it. this guy was a major packrat. his huge house looks as cluttered/packed full as my garage or storage. his tastes are all over the place. not a bare spot on the wall as they were hung solid with art>>> even the doors! his collected art as well as cultural artifacts. he had mummified heads of a missionary & a tribal kings daughter displayed (open air) on a table.

the documentary focused on how he first encountered art as a ny lawyer & became a gallery owner. he shares stories of well know artists he has exhibited over the years.

what i like about this movie is that it is personal rather than academic speculation. his daughter (youngest of 6 girls) did a good job of sharing her unique point of view of this man, her unconventional childhood/home life, and got to the core of this man's passion/obsession with art.

how it relates to my stuff:

doesn't, yet found i was attracted to the personal sharing of this story. the interviews were revealing, heartfelt, and genuine>>>all very natural as if you were sitting in the room with friends. hard to do/pull off even for a daughter. it is this personal sharing/communicating with the viewer that i seek through image. there are works that succeed in this, yet distilling the iconic/visual techniques for communicating this quality is a challenge.

watching this dvd did give some insight into art from a gallery owners perspective. think he should have taken the leap & picked up a brush. i would be curious if he encouraged any of his daughter to pursue art. his youngest is in film, yet it seems offspring in general tend to skirt a parent's realm to stake out their own identity/independence in other fields.
6 daughters>>>there's a story.

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