Independent documentary filmmaker Michael Blackwood has produced and directed more than 150 films on
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Independent documentary filmmaker Michael Blackwood has produced and directed more than 150 films on the arts.
Join The Brooklyn Rail for a virtual film screening of 'HANS HAACKE: 4 DECADES' (2007), directed by Michael Blackwood, this President’s Day, February 20th. Register to receive a 24-hour access link and password to the film. On February 21, Hans Haacke will be in conversation with Yasi Alipour of the Brooklyn Rail.
To register for both of these events, visit: www.brooklynrail.org/events
Jackson Po***ck passed away 66 years ago in a tragic car accident in East Hampton. He was a subject of our film 'The New York School' (directed by Michael Blackwood, written and narrated by Barbara Rose), which is now 50 years old.
"Robert Coates was the first one, as far as I know, in The New Yorker, who applied the term "abstract expressionism" to artists like Po***ck. Alfred Barr had already come up with the term in connection with European painting. Whether it's an adequate term? No. But no art labels are adequate. You saw the strongest painting of your moment going abstract, well, that sucked you in its direction. In the case of some other people, like Po***ck, abstract painting was a liberation for him, his inspiration or his vision, round that was his way out. I feel that artists like Gorky and de Kooning were reluctantly
abstract." - Clement Greenberg
Quote and still images from 'The New York School' (1972, directed by Michael Blackwood, 55 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
'ANDY WARHOL' by Lana Jokel was made at the height of the artist's career in 1972. Jokel, who edited one of Warhol’s films, directed this portrait of the shy artist. It was shot at the Factory as well as various locations in New York, Long Island, and Cannes. Andy was at relative ease when questioned by close admirers and followers, which gives a better picture of the real Warhol. This is one of the few films about Warhol’s work made with the participation of the artist. The film includes Harold Rosenberg, Philip Johnson, Barbara Rose, Emile de Antonio, Clement Greenberg, Ingrid Superstar, Candy Darling, Bridget Polk, among many others.
When questioned by Barbara Rose, “can anybody be an artist?,” Andy responds, “if you say one day you want to be an artist, decide to be an artist, it depends on how far you want to go.”
"My own work...is not anti-cultural, of course, but it is no cultural art. I don't want to fight with culture, I want to ignore it and to make something as one doesn't know anything of the past, who invents all. I think that is interesting; what has been done is finished, is over and I have not to consider it." - Jeanne Dubuffet
Born in 1901, Jean Dubuffet was a very private artist who we visited in Paris in 1973. He is featured in our short documentary titled "THE ARTIST'S STUDIO: JEAN DUBUFFET" (2010), directed by Michael Blackwood, 36 min., color. © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Wishing Jenny Holzer a happy 72nd birthday!
Just over 30 years ago, Holzer participated in our short survey film "ART IN AN AGE OF MASS CULTURE", with Kirk Varnedoe, Adam Gopnik, Barbara Rose, Sasha Newman, Arthur Danto, Roy Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Murray, James Rosenquist, Jeff Koons, and others.
ART IN AN AGE OF MASS CULTURE (1991), directed by Michael Blackwood, 31 min., 16mm, color. © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Remembering the revolutionary readymades, introduced by Marcel Duchamp in 1913. Common place objects, a bicycle wheel, a bottle rack. He challenged the world's notion of art by taking readymade objects from their normal context and exhibiting them as art.
Marcel Duchamp (July 29, 1887 - October 2, 1968) is featured in the second of our three-part series "Masters of Modern Sculpture Part II: Beyond Cubism", directed by Michael Blackwood, written by Edward Fry and Nancy Rosen, Narrated by George Rickey (1978, 58 min., color, 16mm). The film is available to stream on Amazon, Vimeo and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more details.
Remembering Claes Oldenburg, who passed away yesterday at age 93. Gathering inspiration from the world around him, Claes Oldenburg dedicated his career to giving objects life. What many would see only as their mundane, everyday tools Oldenburg saw as an opportunity for art. His famed large scale sculptures stand with such stature and force that the viewer has no choice but to become involved with the piece.
Our feature on the late "Claes Oldenburg: The Formative Years" is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
CLAES OLDENBURG: THE FORMATIVE YEARS (1975), directed by Michael Blackwood, 52 min., 16mm, color. © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Seeing his projects long before the work begins, David Hockney uses his camera to slow time and capture images that would go on to boast his unique style of realism. Take visual journey into the 1960s in a studio visit with Hockney in London.
'David Hockney's Diaries' is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
DAVID HOCKNEY'S DIARIES (1970), directed by Michael Blackwood and Christian Blackwood, 28 min., 16mm, color.
© Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Blackwood .hockney
“White Dog” was a much discussed and controversial film directed by Sam Fuller in 1981, based on a novel by Romain Gary. Its theme is American racism. The central figure is a white German shepherd, adopted by a young actress played by Kristy McNichol, who discovers that the dog had been trained to attack blacks. She takes it to a black dog trainer played by Paul Winfield for reeducation.
Looking forward to this year's 65th edition of the Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi, starting Friday, June 24, which will feature 15 documentaries directed by MIchael Blackwood, including 'Spoleto 1967' and 'Spoleto USA: A Festival Discovers America 1977'. The films will be shown free to the public across four venues, including Sala Pegasus, a cinema in a 12th century church, and the Collicola Arena, an outdoor cinema screen in the courtyard of the Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive. The screenings will include Italian subtitles and are made possible by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
For more information visit:
https://mahler-lewitt.org/artists-on-camera
https://festivaldispoleto.com/events/event/documentari
As part of the Festival dei Due Mondi 2022 in Spoleto, Italy, the Mahler & LeWitt Studios is pleased to present ‘Artists on Camera: Michael Blackwood Productions’, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Michael Blackwood is one of the most established and prolific art documentary makers and has produced over 150 films from the 1960s to now, chronicling the stories of the most impactful creative minds of their day…
Early "wrapped" works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Still images from 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude' (1995, directed by Michael Blackwood, 58 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Remembering Philip Guston (June 27, 1913 - June 7, 1980) whose work lives on, currently touring is the major retrospective "Philip Guston Now", starting at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on view now, followed by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston later this year, and National Gallery of Art and Tate in 2023.
The Guston Foundation
Lebbeus Woods (May 31, 1940 - October 30, 2012) who we remember 10 years after his passing and the making of our film 'Lebbeus Woods and Steven Holl: The Practice of Architecture' (2012, directed by Michael Blackwood, 53 min., color). Both are theorists but Woods was notably preoccupied with the pursuit of a visionary architecture, intentionally, not waiting or searching for commissions, in contrast to Holl whose buildings can be found in many parts of the world. This order of things was interrupted when Holl commissioned Woods to design a four-story pavilion for his large-scale multi complex “Sliced Porosity Block” in Chengdu, China.
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"The living grow and develop by the grace of those who have gone before. If you cherish those who have died, saying thank you in your heart, they will help you grow. You should not think of the past as being dead and gone, the dead as having no connection to the living: if you took that out of my dance, there would be nothing left. It is my history." - Kazuo Ohno, as quoted in our documentary film "Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis"
"Butoh" is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Still images from 'Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis' (1990, directed by Michael Blackwood, 89 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Remembering Barbara Hepworth
"I remember moving through the landscape with my father in his car, and the hills were sculptures, the touch and texture of things. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculpture, and the landscape."
-Barbara Hepworth, quoted in our film 'Masters of Modern Sculpture Part II: Beyond Cubism' (1978, directed by Michael Blackwood).
Our 1985 documentary film "A Composer's Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera" was featured as part of Metrograph's “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within,” a screening series with New York Philharmonic Artist-in-Residence Anthony Roth Costanzo. The film will be available to stream for Metrograph members through June 2: https://metrograph.com/live-screenings/a-composers-notes-philip-glass-and-the-making-of-an-opera/
Via Metrograph's website: "This month our series celebrates the 2022 rebirth of Costanzo’s performance in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten at the Metropolitan Opera by exploring the opera’s genesis with a screening of A Composer’s Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera, directed by Michael Blackwood."
10 years ago we visited the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor at his home and studio where he discusses his background and practice with the critic and historian Kenneth Frampton.
Wishing Jasper Johns a happy 92nd birthday today!
His prolific career was recently surveyed in the joint Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror exhibition held at New York's Whitney Museum and Philadelphia's Museum of Art just over a year ago.
"In 1960 when I was in my early thirties, I was part of a generation of architects who tried to revolt against the principles of Europe. I tried to break down architecture into a series of cells and to articulate them in respect of each other so that they can grow. If you have a fixed framework, then this frame cannot be flexible, cannot change with the dynamic flow of time. So I tried to combine cellular units in such an open way as to create new architecture and I think I was able to produce some revolutionary architectural pieces." - Kisho Kurokawa, from "Kisho Kurokawa: From Metabolism to Symbiosis" (1993), directed by Michael Blackwood.
"I deal personally with all the experiences that I have and then I just trust my intuition. I think that my paintings are like one step beyond my head." - Robert Rauschenberg, as quoted in our film "Robert Rauschenberg: Retrospective"
Still images from 'Robert Rauschenberg: Retrospective' (1979, directed by Michael Blackwood, 45 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Today marks the 30 years since the death of Francis Bacon. The British painter's incomparable body of work, often interpreted as dark and grotesque, were renderings of what Bacon described as "the brutality of fact."
Our 1985 documentary "Francis Bacon and the Brutality Fact" sees critic David Sylvester, a dear friend of the artist, digging deep into the artistic psyche of Bacon as they discuss the painter's upbringing, inspirations, and all of the personal politics and philosophies that Bacon pours into his work.
"Francis Bacon and the Brutality Fact" is available to stream via Apple TV, Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Still images from 'Francis Bacon and the Brutality Fact' (1985, directed by Michael Blackwood, 58 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
We would like to wish a happy birthday to Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.
10 years ago, we released our documentary "The Practice of Architecture: Visiting Peter Zumthor." The film captures a visit from renowned critic and theorist Kenneth Frampton to Frampton's studio, located in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss Canton of Graubünden. There the two great minds discuss Zumthor's most famous works, as well as works that were yet to be completed.
The film is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Still images from 'The Practice of Architecture: Visiting Peter Zumthor' (2012, directed by Michael Blackwood, 58 min., color) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
"Philip Guston Now," an upcoming major retrospective, will open May 1 at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and continue through September 11, 2022, before traveling to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from October 23, 2022 through January 15, 2023, followed by National Gallery of Art from February 26 to August 27, and Tate from October 3, 2034 through February 4, 2024.
To learn more about Philip Guston, please see our documentary films "Philip Guston: A Life Lived" (1980,) and "Conversations with Philip Guston" (2003)
Still images from 'Philip Guston: A Life Lived' (1980, directed by Michael Blackwood, 58 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
"Guston in Time: Remembering Philip Guston," written by the late poet and dear friend of Philip Guston, Ross Feld, will be available in paperback on May 24, 2022. The cover features an image from our 1980 film "Philip Guston: A Life Lived."
As described by New York Review Books:
"Ross Feld, a young poet, novelist, and critic, was one of the few reviewers of Guston’s show to write favorably about it. Guston responded with a grateful note and a new friendship was soon born. Feld became an inveterate visitor to the painter’s and an inspiration to his work. Guston in Time, written not long before Feld’s early death from cancer, is a portrait of Guston the man; of his wife, Musa, a major figure not only in his life but in his work; and a reckoning with his supremely individual achievement as an artist."
Legendary costume designer Edith Head (1897-1981) is still the most awarded woman in Oscars history, with eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design.
In our documentary film "Edith Head," the Hollywood icon presents some of her famous designs using glamorous models to impersonate Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly.
The film is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Still images from 'Edith Head' (1981, directed by Christian Blackwood and Charlotte Kerr, 28 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. She was the Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer of the Trisha Brown Dance Company in 1970, which lives on today performing and teaching her work around the world.
Her legacy is captured in our 1980 dance survey film 'MAKING DANCES: SEVEN POST-MODERN CHOREOGRAPHERS' which also features Douglas Dunn, Kenneth King, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Meredith Monk and Sarah Rudner.
Still images from 'Making Dances: Seven Post-Modern Choreographers' (1980, directed by Michael Blackwood, 89 min., color, 16mm) © Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc.
'George Kennan: A Critical Voice' was made at the height of the US-Soviet arms race. George Kennan declared that we were perched on a “razor’s edge of precariousness”, facing irreparable nuclear war. Kennan’s proposals brought him to the forefront of the movement to avert a nuclear catastrophe. His credentials as a Pulitzer Prize winning diplomatic historian and former Ambassador to the Soviet Union established him as the most respected American scholar of Soviet strategic policies. Kennan’s opinions are based on years of experience in East-West affairs; he witnessed first hand the beginnings of the US-Soviet conflict during World War II, which eventually led to the seemingly permanent division of Europe. In this hour-long profile, filmed in 1982, Kennan expresses grave concern about the urgency of ending the arms race and provides specific disarmament proposals.
George Kennan (February 16, 1904 - March 17, 2005)
Still image from 'GEORGE KENNAN: A CRITICAL VOICE' (1982, directed by Michael Blackwood, 58 min., color, 16mm).
Adolph Gottlieb, one of the "The Irascible Eighteen" and first generation of The New York School, was born on this day in 1903 in New York City. He is participated in the making of our first art survey film in 1972 called 'THE NEW YORK SCHOOL'
Michael Graves is the man who popularized the Post-Modernist call for a return to classicism in architecture. His early designs were based on the aesthetic of Le Corbusier, but he abandoned that approach for one which favored richly colored, ornamented, and highly articulated structures. The most famous of these is the Portland Building, the first large-scale building in the Post-Modern style.
Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 - March 12, 2015)
- film still of Michael Graves in front of his Portland Building (Portland, Oregon) on the day of its opening on October 2, 1982, from 'BEYOND UTOPIA: CHANGING ATTITUDES IN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE' (1983, directed by Michael Blackwood, 59 min., color, 16mm).
"Everyone has their own dance. And it is always evolving. Everything changes. Clouds become rain, rivers, oceans and finally water v***r again. Humans are just the same." - Min Tanaka, as quoted in our 1990 documentary film "Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis."
"Butoh" is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
To honor 40 years since the passing of Thelonious Monk, our films "Monk" and "Monk and Europe" are currently being screened in cities across Japan until late April. Please visit monk-movie.com for more information.
"I realized that you should choose your heart's desire when you're planning the rest of your life. So I saw dance and thought that must be a combination of art and movement, my two favorite things." - Elizabeth Streb, as quoted in our 2001 documentary film "Streb: Pop Action."
The film is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
On this day in 1982, the world lost one of the revolutionary figures in American music. Thelonious Monk's composition and piano playing forever changed the landscape of Jazz, and he remains among the pinnacle of great Jazz musicians.
Our two-part documentary series from 1968 follows Monk on tour in the US and Europe, capturing his performances, rehearsals, recording, and personal moments during a highly fruitful era of his career. "Monk" and "Monk in Europe" are available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Happy 90th birthday Gerhard Richter!
Shown here twenty years ago at MoMA at his 40-year retrospective in our film 'GERHARD RICHTER: 4 DECADES' (2002, directed by Michael Blackwood), the German painter discusses his still active career with art historian Robert Storr.
.richter
"I guess if you could say that if I have rejected anything, the picture making, the story telling approach may be the one thing that I have consistently not used. I just feel that it is not necessary." - Robert Ryman, as quoted in our 1988 documentary film "4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg."
"4 Artists" is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Glen Tetley (1926 - 2007) led an extremely varied life in dance while enriching the repertoire of companies all over the world.
Our 1995 documentary film "Glen Tetley: Pierrot's Tower" centers around the staging of Tetley's ballet "Voluntaries." In our film, Tetley speaks on his inspiration, sources, and visions behind his ballets.
"Glen Tetley: Pierrot's Tower" is available to stream via Amazon, Vimeo, and Kanopy. Please visit our website for more information.
Happy 93rd birthday to Claes Oldenburg!
The iconic Pop artist is featured in a few of our documentary titles including "Claes Oldenburg: The Formative Years" (1975) and "Masters of Modern Sculpture Part III: The New World" (1978.) For streaming links and other information, please visit our website.
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“White Dog” was a much discussed and controversial film directed by Sam Fuller in 1981, based on a novel by Romain Gary. Its theme is American racism. The central figure is a white German shepherd, adopted by a young actress played by Kristy McNichol, who discovers that the dog had been trained to attack blacks. She takes it to a black dog trainer played by Paul Winfield for reeducation. #SamFuller #WhiteDog #ChristianBlackwood #Hollywood #FilmHistory #Documentary
On this day in 1904, the first underground subway line opened in New York City. Undoubtably one of the great prevailing icons of city life, the NYC subway system was the subject of one of the earliest documentaries in our filmography, "Broadway Express" (1959,) which is now available to stream in remastered 2K resolution. Please visit our website for more information. New York Transit Museum Metropolitan Transportation Authority - MTA #NYTMCollection #Subway #MTA #OTD #Trains #Transit #NYC #NewYork #History #Documentary #Film #MichaelBlackwoodProductions
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