Director Amir Bar-Lev grapples with exposing the authenticity of four-year-old Marla's paintings at the sake of burdening her publicly shamed family to transfixing results.
Director Amir Bar-Lev grapples with exposing the authenticity of four-year-old Marla's paintings at the sake of burdening her publicly shamed family to transfixing results.
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Most four-year-olds make paintings that hang on the refrigerator in their parents' kitchen, but by that age Marla Olmstead already had her first gallery show in Binghamton, NY. Born in 2000, Marla first picked up a paint brush when she was a year old, following the example of her father, an amateur painter, and soon the tyke was creating large canvases with unexpected skill and enthusiasm. Her father gave one of Marla's paintings to a friend who owned a coffee shop, and when a customer offered
to buy the piece for 250 dollars, the pre-kindergartner began a career as a professional artist. Marla's work has been displayed around the United States and her paintings fetch as much as 25,000 dollars each, but some have questioned if Marla is following her own muse or taking instruction from her parents. Others have debated the validity of reviews comparing her work to Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, and a few have asked if Marla's parents are the art world equivalent of stage mothers, pushing their child and exploiting her talents for their own benefit. Documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev examines young artist, her work and the controversy behind it in his film My Kid Could Paint That, which was an official selection at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
New York Times senior art critic Michael Kimmelman offers sharp insights when he mentions how Marla's painting reflects not just 'innocence' and what our psyches project into them, but also 'the cynicism of the art world.'
More than a standard child prodigy profile, My Kid Could Paint That turns into a priceless examination of modern art, celebrity and what it means to be a kid.
The self-reflexive narrative is particularly fascinating because Marla's story is so critical to selling her art; everyone involved, the filmmaker included, has a vested interest in proving it genuine or fake.
It's a thought-provoking look at the world of abstract art, the relationship between a reporter and his/her subject, and the nature of parenting, prodigies, and "objective" storytelling.
Documentarian Amir Bar-Lev began making a film about whether Modern art is a scam and whether a 4-year-old painter from Binghampton, N.Y., might not be as good as Picasso. But Bar-Lev ended making a film instead about whether the 4-year-old is a scam.
My Kid Could Paint That is a documentary that brings to the fore questions of youth exploitation, celebrity culture, the "con game" that is modern art and media's role in the whole tangled mess.
Questions of authenticity surrounding four year old Marla Olmstead's paintings occasion filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev's insightful investigation about media frenzy and public perception, and the very nature of nonfigurative art.
One of art's richest rewards is its way of teaching us about our assumptions, doubts, and capacity for faith. ... My Kid Could Paint That gets people thinking and talking.
Marla's story is a sobering illustration of the way children can be exploited by adults who should know better %u2013 journalists, filmmakers and especially their own parents.
Mais interessante do que a provável fraude envolvendo a encantadora Marla é a reveladora sombra que o documentário projeta sobre o universo da arte moderna.
The paintings become colourfully self-deluded distortions of a world where adults project themselves back into childhood, capitalizing on both the adult nostalgia for innocence and our fascination with children who seem somehow adult.
Amir Bar-Lev strikes gold with this documentary. A very capable film maker gets his break when a twist in the story he is covering reveals a compelling mystery. This is a doc about so much more than a little girls paintings and its text book perfect film making!
The parents tried to PROVE that they kid does its own drawnings...and even set up cameras, but you can see them showing her to paint here, paint there...I think this is a fraud. I also think abstract art is bs! Just watch and judge it yourself.
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