Movies Similar to Quem Tem Medo da Arte Contemporânea?

Flying with Fins(2024)

Paintings, performances, experiments, electronic music sounding in the spaces of two old houses in a small Italian town, heated conversations about contemporary art, touching meetings with the closest people and places in Bulgaria after 50 years of separation. "Flying with Fins" is a film about the constant search for meaning in art and life. Alzek Misheff, artist - rebel and experimenter, leads us in this philosophical and aesthetic journey through time, space and ideas.

North Star: Mark di Suvero(1978)

North Star: Mark di Suvero is a 1977 documentary film about Mark di Suvero that was produced by François de Menil and Barbara Rose. Born in 1933, di Suvero has become one of the most recognized sculptors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. From about 1975 to 1977, fairly early in di Suvero's long career, filmmaker de Menil and art historian Rose produced this film, which was characterized at the time as "a tribute to the extraordinary work and life of the innovative American sculptor of monumental but delicate constructions." The film shows di Suvero making and installing several of his very large sculptures, and incorporates informal interviews of di Suvero, his mother, and others involved in his career and life at that time. From 1971 to 1975 di Suvero, an American, lived in a self-imposed exile in France in protest of US involvement in war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and the filming spans the end of his exile and his return to New York.

Jaar. Lament of the Images(2017)

Follows Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar as he finds his artistic voice and develops the socially critical perspective of his work.

Benutzt und gesteuert – Künstler im Netz der CIA(2006)

The Price of Everything(2018)

Featuring collectors, dealers, auctioneers and a rich range of artists, including market darlings George Condo, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, this documentary examines the role of art and artistic passion in today’s money-driven, consumer-based society.

Stones and Flies: Richard Long in the Sahara(1988)

In the fall of 1987, Philippe Haas accompanied the sculptor Richard Long to the Algerian Sahara and filmed him tracing with his feet, or constructing with desert stones, simple geometric figures (straight lines, circles, spirals). In counterpoint to the images, Richard Long explains his approach. Since 1967, Richard Long (1945, Bristol), who belongs to the land art movement, has traveled the world on foot and installed, in places often inaccessible to the public, stones, sticks and driftwood found in situ. His ephemeral works are reproduced through photography. He thus made walking an art, and land art an aspiration of modern man for solitude in nature.

Oh My God! It's Harrod Blank!(2008)

An obsessively-made documentary, filmed over 16 years, exploring the creative life and adventures of the eccentric artist and entrepreneur Harrod Blank. From his youth growing up in the woods with chickens and working as a camera assistant for his father- the venerable film-maker Les Blank- to the creation of his first attention-getting artcar, to his current multi-faceted career as creator and head of a nationwide art car movement, all the while pursuing his visions of non-conformity. Featuring interviews with his girl-friends, his mom, his brother, his raconteur lifelong pal, Kevin, as well as Blank’s own painful yet hilarious self-examinations. With special appearances by Les Blank and many fine art car artists. “The pressure to conform is incredible, ” says Blank, “but I don’t care what other people think. The reason I’m alive is to create.”

The Warhol Effect(2024)

Lifting the lid on the fascinating last decade of Andy Warhol's life and the legacy he left for future artists, through never-before-seen footage and interviews with insiders.

Les Couturiers de l'Église(2016)

Re-enactment(2000)

For this work Alÿs purchased a gun in Mexico City then walked through the city streets with the weapon in his hand. After eleven minutes he was arrested by the police. The following day he repeated the action, this time in cooperation with the police. By presenting a record of this dramatic action alongside footage of its reenactment, Alÿs blurs the boundaries between documentation and fiction. Questioning the concept of authenticity, this work demonstrates “how media can distort and dramatize the immediate reality of a moment,” the artist has said. Gallery label from Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, May 8–August 1, 2011.

Flys and Angels(2009)

Ilya Kabakov is considered one of the most important contemporary artists worldwide. Born and raised in the Ukraine in the period between Stalin and Gorbatschow he left the country in the 80s. In his Installations and his numerous paintings Kabakov creates a world of its own, which leaves the heaviness of socialist and post-socialist life far behind. The film links Ilya Kabakovs artistic spaces with insights into Russian everyday life, which itself sometimes appears like an installation by the artist.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry(2012)

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.

Better Than Andy - The Crazy Finn is Here(2009)

Mock -documentary about a Finnish contemporary artist who took the world by a storm.

6=0 Homeostética(2008)

Documentary about the not-likely-legendary Portuguese art group from the 1980's.

Freeze: But is it Art?(1994)

In 1988, art student Damien Hirst and a group of like-minded associates mounted an exhibition in a building in the East End of London. Entitled Freeze, it was a huge critical and commercial success, propelling Hirst and the group into the spotlight of the avant-garde. More than five years later, Hirst exhibits to international acclaim and is regularly derided in the tabloid press. This portrait of Hirst, which resumes the Omnibus season, is presented as a drug-induced nightmare after Hirst has been put to sleep by a sinister dentist, played by Donald Pleasence. In between interviews with fellow Freeze artists including Angus Fairhurst , Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin , Hirst is seen preparing Mother and Child Divided, his work for last year's Venice Blennale. The piece consists of a cow and a calf, each sawn in half, pickled in formaldehyde and exhibited in four tanks.

Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina(2015)

An enormous shroud of white cement covers a hillside in the remote of western Sicily. It is both land art and a memorial to the town of Gibellina that was devastated by an earthquake in January 1968. It’s a work by the Italian artist Alberto Burri. He covered the ruins of the town with white cement and fissures function as pathways that wind through an area of roughly 20 acres. Petra Noordkamp captures Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina by Alberto Burri as an experentiental work of art filled with a sense of place and history.

El Cuerpo del Escándalo - Un film acerca de Natacha Voliakovsky(2019)

Beijo de Borboleta(2024)

Spit Earth: Who is Jordan Wolfson?(2020)

Spit Earth: Who Is Jordan Wolfson? is a feature documentary film about this controversial and divisive artist who in the ensuing five years has only solidified his stature with unnerving and provocative new works that elicit extreme reactions from both critical naysayers and vocal proponents alike. Wolfson is not content to play by the rules of a conservative self-policing art market that favors the status quo, instead preferring to make us squirm as he engages a host of lightning-rod issues facing our society today; homophobia, misogyny, racism, white nationalism, antisemitism and violence to name but a few. Wolfson is an art maker on the world stage whose immersive works take on today’s endemic virtue signaling and politically correct narratives, veritably throwing it all back into our faces.

Black President(2015)

Exiled, yet internationally celebrated Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai's demons come to life as he tries to flee South Africa following increasingly fractious experiences on the Johannesburg art scene. His greatest demon “Black Guilt” is one he can never shake off, this burden of having to speak for his people. But Is this responsibility really a burden at all, or is it actually a superpower? Either way, will Kudzi ever be President of His Own State of Being?