GREENWICH, CT — On Thursday, November 7, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, Bruce Museum Presents takes you behind the scenes of the creative process with Rewind/Fast-Forward: Celebrating the Artist Documentaries of Olympia Stone.
Olympia Stone is an independent producer of documentary films about art and artists. Her first documentary, The Collector, explored the five-decade career of her father, famed NYC gallery owner and art collector Allan Stone. Since then, her award-winning films continue to probe the motivations and personal histories of eclectic artists as a way of providing insight into their work.
Join Stone and two of her artist subjects—James Grashow (The Cardboard Bernini) and Elizabeth King (Double Take: The Art of Elizabeth King)—for a retrospective of these astonishing and illuminating films, and their maker.
First broadcast nationwide on PBS in 2012, The Cardboard Bernini won Best Documentary at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival 2013 and was an official selection at 20 additional festivals, including Sebastopol and Santa Fe. The Cardboard Bernini examines the life and work of artist James Grashow as he spends five years building a giant cardboard fountain, inspired by the work of the famous Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Propelled by a crucial event documented in the film, Grashow is driven to experience the process of creation and loss by making an extraordinary artwork that will be destroyed in the end.
Double Take: The Art of Elizabeth King engages the viewer in the work of sculptor and stop-action filmmaker Elizabeth King, who embarks on each new project by posing a single question to herself: “Can this be physically done?” Tracing King’s creative flow, curiosity, and obsessive drive to solve the inevitable series of artistic and technical problems that arise in creating her disconcerting sculptures and animations, this documentary film explores King’s passion about the mind/body riddle, the science of emotion, the human/machine interface, and those things a robot will never be able to do.
The evening’s discussion will be moderated by Leonard Jacobs, a veteran of the arts, culture, and entertainment industry. From 2011 through 2018, Jacobs served as Director of Cultural Institutions at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; previously, as a journalist and critic, he was the National Theatre Editor of Backstage and Founding Editor of Theatermania.com. Since 2012, he has additionally served as Executive Editor of The Clyde Fitch Report, which produces and publishes opinion and reporting from the crossroads of arts and politics.
Doors open at 6:20 pm for a reception with light bites and beverages, followed by the panel discussion and Q&A, 7:00-8:30 pm. Seats are $30 for Museum members, $45 for non-members. To reserve a seat at Rewind/Fast-Forward, visit brucemuseum.org or call 203-869-0376.
Showcasing experts on compelling subjects of relevance and interest to members and visitors to the Bruce Museum, Bruce Museum Presents launched on September 5, with Generation ♀: How Contemporary Women Artists Are Re-Shaping Today’s Art World. The series continued on October 3 with From the Bottom of the World: The Art and Science of Antarctica.
Coming up Thursday, December 5, is the fourth Bruce Museum Presents program: Can Art Drive Change on Climate Change? An Evening with Alexis Rockman.