Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock?
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| Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? | |
|---|---|
 Promotional movie poster for the film |
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| Directed by | Harry Moses |
| Produced by | Don Hewitt Steven Hewitt Michael Lynne |
| Starring | Teri Horton Peter Paul Biro |
| Release date(s) | November 9, 2006 |
| Language | English |
Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? is a documentary following a woman named Teri Horton, a 73 year old former long-haul truck driver from California, who purchased a painting from a thrift shop for $5, only later to find out that it may be a Jackson Pollock painting; she had no clue at the time who Jackson Pollock was, hence the name of the flick.[1]
According to an interview from the film, Horton purchased the painting from a California thrift shop as a gift for a friend who was feeling depressed. Horton thought the bright colors were cheery, but when the dinner-table-sized painting proved too large to fit into her friend's trailer, Horton set it out among other items at a yard sale, where a local art teacher spotted it and suggested that the work could have been painted by Pollock due to the similarity to his action painting technique. At one point the two decided it would be good for target practice, but they never got around to trying that tactic.[2] The film depicts Horton's attempts to authenticate and sell the painting as an original work by Pollock whose authenticity is doubtful at best because the painting was purchased at a thrift store, is unsigned, and is without provenance, the documentation of a painting’s history and during Jackson's lifetime there were many imitators of his style. On another level, the movie explores the challenges faced by the average uneducated, but determined, citizen who takes on the elitist, high-stakes world of art dealership.
Most art connoisseurs, including Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, believe the painting to be inauthentic, while Nick Carone, an artist and friend of Pollock’s, is uncertain. Teri hires Peter Paul Biro, a forensic specialist, who matched a partial fingerprint on the canvas to a fingerprint on a can of paint in Pollock’s studio and to fingerprints on two authenticated Pollock canvases. Additionally, through an analysis of paint samples from Pollock's studio, he was able to confirm a match with particles of paint found on the canvas in question in what he calls a "3 point match". She also involves Tod Volpe, an art dealer previously convicted of defrauding his clients, who invests in the painting as a means of recuperating his reputation and financial solvency.
Both Volpe and Biro are involved together in a business venture, Legends Art Group, to manage and sell works of art with ambiguous or questionable authenticity; the formation of this venture is discussed in the documentary. Volpe approached producer Steven Hewitt, who, along with executive producer Don Hewitt (creator of 60 Minutes), had formed the Hewitt Group to produce documentaries. Harry Moses,[3] an Emmy, Peabody, and Directors Guild of America award-winner, and a recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, is the film's other producer, as well as its director and writer.
Horton, who appeared on The Montel Williams Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and the Late Show with David Letterman with the painting, once turned down an offer of US $2 million and then later 9 million for it.[3] She is asking 25 million dollars for her $5.00 purchase.
[edit] Reception
Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock was well received from critics having a 100% "Certified Fresh" at Rotten Tomatoes and a 70% at Metacritic.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] Deiner, Paige Lauren. "Woman’s quest to authenticate Pollock art riveting." The Monitor. 13 July 2007.
- ^ [2] Scheib, Ronnie. "Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?" Variety 15 November 2006
- ^ a b Randy Kennedy (November 9, 2006). "Could Be a Pollock; Must Be a Yarn". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/arts/design/09poll.html. "The filmmakers were initially fascinated by the science-versus-art angle of Ms. Horton’s story, about how forensics may be starting to nudge the entrenched tradition of connoisseurship from its perch in the world of art authentication. But as they spent more time with her, they began to see the movie as being about something more important than whether the painting was a real Pollock, a question left very much for the viewer to decide. “It became, really, a story about class in America,” Mr. Moses said. “It’s a story of the art world looking down its collective nose at this woman with an eighth-grade education."
[edit] External links
- Biro's documentation of his forensic work on Horton's painting.
- New Yorker (October 22, 2007) article about the film.
- New York Times Review
- Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock? at the Internet Movie Database
- Cameron Skene, Montreal Gazette, Nov. 8, 2006. Profile of Paul Biro, interviews with Horton and filmmakers; a further look at the authentication of Pollock in this case.
- Fine Art Registry investigation of fingerprint claim
