~NYC Art Celebs … in the news: GREGORY CREWDSON & VITO SCHNABEL
oh, I can’t RESIST !!
big time – art world … fan news !!
FIRST UP: GREGORY CREWDSON !!
FILE UNDER: getting …. ‘Under the Roses’, yes !!
looks like I’m not the ONLY !! friggin person to love that movie – ‘GREGORY CREWDSON: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS’, an amazing on-all-levels, documentary film made on the life and work of the contemporary artist/photographer Gregory Crewdson – by BEN SHAPIRO.
GREGORY CREWDSON, photographed in SEPT 2008 at the RITA ACKERMANN OPENING, in CHELSEA. ANDREA ROSEN GALLERY, NYC
PHOTO BY & COPYRIGHT: NANCY SMITH
yep, it looks like, he just stepped out . . of the movie !!
. . . as word has it, gently drifting down to the Big Apple from Yale, where Crewdson teaches, even the photographer himself, is quite taken aback . . . by the snowballing success of the film.
which, yes has taken off. no thanks to the New York Post.
CREWDSON is reported to have said . . .
something to the effect that: the film catches him so intimately because . . . “the ‘guy’ (Ben Shapiro) followed me around for so long, I just thought it would never get made” . . . “so I let my guard down !!”
dive in the mystery pond, and swim those laps, baby !!
and yep, that’s one of the best parts of the film. New York Post be damned, you get to know Gregory, and his work – just like the back of your hand, or more succinctly like a days’ old t-shirt, that you even slept in, as well !!
the intimate portrait … contrasts nicely with, even stunningly so, with the, at times technical, but always enjoyable 3-D reveal on Crewdson’s work. which filmmaker and also photographer, Ben Shapiro treats us to, so generously. as he gently pulls the curtains open, on the extensive production, and secrets !! that go on behind-the-scenes of these frozen-in-time statements on the American ‘dream’.
10 years of archival footage is no joke. in fact, the documentarian Shapiro, meets the contrarian fantasy-maker Crewdson, head-on, in a kind of a cinematic … break-dance face-off.
fact spinner vs. fiction maker, and both men come up … smelling roses !!
one captivating little fact/thought … dropped so casually amongst many others, in the film … is that although enough production goes on behind-the-scenes in a Crewdson project as to make you think this was a big budget movie filming in your small town America main street … it’s NOT. the big diff is that Crewdson has to say it all in one frame. and the rest is the unspoken ‘mystery’.
and that is really what his (ironically) ‘hyper-realist’ work is all about: mystery, mystery and fear and loss.
in the film, he says something to the effect that: the big difference between what I do and the movies, is that I ‘don’t have to worry about taking the story past this one image’, I don’t have to write what happens next.
while Shapiro, the ‘bio-realist’ filmmaker, thanks to over 10 years of footage – moves backwards, and forward and sideways … like a cat.
the Speedies, anybody !! ha.
no surprise, the film has already popped back up on the big screen in New York City, where it is now playing at the Lincoln Cinema thru DEC 6.
don’t miss it. the sheer beauty of the imagery, shines out, on that big screen, for sure.
esp the ‘fog’ truck !!
see: ‘GREGORY CREWDSON: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS’ – LINCOLN CENTER
where they’ve got some great shots from the film, and therefore of Crewdson’s work – looping on a really nice – digital slideshow.
see: ‘GREGORY CREWDSON: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS’ – the official website & TRAILER
and note, the TRAILER is just, well … it isn’t really up to ‘speed’. . . the film is hundred thousand times – better. they should have rolled with more raw imagery, rather than the ‘sensational’ homeless guy ? just saying. in case it turns you off. NOT.
MEANWHILE . . . IN OTHER NEWS !!
ON A PERHAPS MORE MUNDANE – BUT EVEN MORE . . . ‘SENSATIONAL’, TABLOID-NEWS WORTHY NOTE !!
and even making international headlines . . . this morning !!
HOMEBOY, VITO SCHNABEL – is coming … up ‘roses’, too !!
they say he is hanging with … DEMI MOORE. you go, VITO !!
and sell some art while you are at – it !!
p.s. ASHTON KUTCHER – is said to be a big fan of …. ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ !! – so, I guess Demi is too ?
new generation NYC art dealer VITO SCHNABEL at the opening of the second BRUCENNIAL 2012.
PHOTO BY & COPYRIGHT: NANCY SMITH.
POP-UP SPACE, DOWNTOWN GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC. FEB 29, 2012
VITO SCHNABEL, Julian’s much liked eldest son, is best known here, in NYC – for his key association with the ‘rebel’ crew, aka BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION, that puts on the BRUCENNIAL SHOW, an underground head-to-head face-off with the staid Whitney Biennial attempt to keep up it’s severely faded and way past expiry date rep – as the cutting edge survey of the scene.
see: PIX & COMMENTARY – BRUCENNIAL 2012 – OPENING / artloversnewyork