The Mystery of Picasso lets the art do the talking. I had my doubts about it given it was filmed in 1956, but it’s actually the clearest view into the creative process of an artist I have seen to date, almost entirely without words. Unfortunately, the music, like the title, feels poorly chosen and detracts from the viewing experience.

The first part is a series of quick marker and ink drawings. The filmmaker developed a technique showing the drawing developing in real time. Picasso sat and drew on one side of a special cloth and the camera was on the other side, registering every mark he made. The drawings become repetitive but certainly offer a quick first glimpse into his artistic process. The best ones are the most abstract, black lines and circles filling the page, coming alive to acquire depth and vibrancy.

The breathtaking section followed the development of three paintings, with images taken every few minutes. The first is the head of a goat. Starting from a simple, loose line drawing, he worked until it took on an expressive life of its own. What’s most interesting is to see how much he reworked the painting - every single part of it going from light to dark and sometimes back to light, detail to non-detailed, colours changing throughout as well. He was experimenting throughout. The final product is a stunner and in this case, he actually says off camera that it took five hours. It was a jaw-dropper to understand just how much he worked every square inch of the canvas. I assumed that the most famous painter of the twentieth century would know what he wanted when he started a painting and simply carried it out. Given his work appears so loose and quick, I did not think he needed so much trial and error - obviously a false assumption.

The shock only grew with the next painting, a nude woman reading. In this case, the process is even more dramatic, at a certain point he scrapes away all his work and starts over again. In this case, the face was where almost all the effort was concentrated. Seeing the changes and the various moods expressed by each iteration was amazing. At the same time, other parts retained the looseness of the initial sketch. At the final stage, he integrated collaged papers into the painting.

The final painting is an inspiration for all struggling artists. It’s a collection of vignettes of beach scenes - waterskiing, houses, people standing. In this case he worked every single section over and over and over again. One of the central figures is a woman, who never stops changing size and gesture. In this case, even the genius overworked his piece, eventually saying off camera that it’s really going badly and he wants to start over. He does and the final finished painting is much more in line with his later work - people who look similar to Henry Moore sculptures. He should have stopped halfway through the initial version as it was amazing, but he didn’t. He was searching for more and risked failure to achieve it. So the takeaway for me is that risk and failure are part of the artistic process as well.

My conclusion is that Picasso’s process was to go down a path and express his visual idea according to his style - but he didn’t stop there. He went further, pushing his style to greater individual expression through trial, error and experimentation.

The sad note of the film is that all the work he created during the filming was destroyed - the only record of it is in the film. Too bad, I would have happily taken those pieces for myself given the chance.

Pina, 2011, is a unique artist biography in that the artist is absent - she died suddenly, a week before shooting was scheduled to begin. In the hands of supremely talented director, Wim Wenders, this death and grief of her dance company members becomes a reference point in some unexpected ways.

Pina Bausch was a modern dance leader. An early quote refers to dance as a language that has to be learned. This applies for her dancers but also for audiences. As an audience member with no interest in dance, this movie was a challenge for me. It remains a language I don’t speak, although I have learned a few words by watching this movie. 

To handle the absence of the central character, Wenders surprisingly uses little existing film footage of Pina, but rather many portrait shots of the dancers looking at the camera with a voice over of their stories and comments about Pina. Very effective emotionally, but when talking about her and her dance philosophy - I’m still unable to speak the language or even learn much about it.

On a more positive front, the movie shows significant excerpts of performances. The ones I enjoyed the most are actually the vignettes of dancers in non-studio or non-theatre settings, including sidewalks, forests, even beside a swimming pool. My favourite is a man on the street dancing while a small dog yaps at his feet the whole time. That integration of dance into modern life and settings did feel appropriate.

The themes of the her longer pieces revolve around the tension between the sexes and a blinding yearning, usually for some sort of connection with others. Apparently that was one of her constant questions to her dancers: "What are you longing for", to which they needed to respond through dance. 

Where she stands out in the world of modern dance is in bringing a strong theatrical element into her performances. Where this outweighs the overbearing conceptual aspects of some of her work, such as Cafe Mueller, I can see myself sitting through a performance. For those highly conceptual pieces, it would be really difficult for me to stay connected for any extended period.

The only performance I really enjoyed was Full Moon. All the themes of her work are there, but this one is filled with joy rather than angst. The physical, high energy approach of her dancers combines well with the subject matter.

By watching Pina I learned more about modern dance, something of very little interest to me. But the unique situation Wenders found himself in and his solution to the sudden absence of the film's main subject do create a memorable film, filled with raw sorrow. But precisely that closeness to her death created an overly eulogistic final product.

Finding Vivian Maier, 2014, is a study of the life of someone who has become one of the key figures in street photography - despite not publishing a single photo during her life. The documentary is not aimed primarily at showing her stunning work, but delving into the mystery of her life. A noble aim, but for someone so determined to keep the doors of her life closed, it’s an effort that can only partially succeed, as this movie does on that front.

Maier worked as a nanny, mostly in Chicago, from the 1950s to the 1990s. During that time, she shot an estimated 150,000 photos - a staggering number. She was only discovered as a fluke by the film’s producer and narrator. Maier was never interviewed for the movie as she died in 2009 before work on the film started.

The fundamental mystery is how this woman who fled any type of intimacy with anyone - family, those for whom she worked, friends - was able to connect with people on the streets she photographed. In books and the unfortunate very small photo selection on the DVD, you see how she could elicit the most remarkable expressions and humanity in her subjects. At the same time, her photos have a breathtaking composition and capture moments in remarkable ways. Clearly an exceptional talent but also a compulsion to take that many photographs.

I would have preferred seeing more of her work and her progression over the years. The best we get is examples throughout the film with minimal or no reference to when the photo was taken. Some of the photos are of children she nannied. Now adults, they are the main subject of the interviews in the movie and have the most insightful stories. Frequently, they were marched around town, including downtrodden sections, so that she could take photos. 

Even with these interviews, we never completely grasp the connection between the artist and her work. While difficult in the case of most artists, perhaps this is one of the more extreme and enigmatic cases. Nevertheless, we don’t need to know the interior life, motivations and reasons of an artist to appreciate her work. So why bother trying so hard as this movie does? Make the connection if you can, but look at the work, analyze it, see how it evolves and ultimately admire it and appreciate it. 

Finding Vivian Maier shows us a talented, mysterious person. We won’t be able to understand her. We can understand her art, something this documentary should have made a better effort to do.  

Exit Through the Gift Shop, 2010, is everything the famous, anonymous, street artist Banksy is - iconoclastic, funny, mocking, ambiguous and likely other things I am missing. There are so many readings of this documentary and the ambiguity and irony only grows as the movie continues. It’s feels like he’s repeating - Do you think I really meant that? I can see the expression on his face, but given nobody knows who he is, so I guess there’s something wrong with my picture. The prank never ends.

The story starts with the transformation of a Banksy super-fan Thierry Gietta into a world famous artist over the course of a few weeks. After the fact, I remember seeing his work in a Toronto Yorkville gallery selling for $30,000. Are you kidding me? 

This documentary was an introduction into graffiti and street art, something I had not thought too much about, but for which I have been increasing in appreciation over time. Seeing how vandalism has now evolved into fine art world through the case study of Banksy is certainly a hugely humorous elements of the story. He went from being chased by police to having his work sold at top world auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Quite the journey.

The narrative glue of the story is compulsive videographer Thierry who goes from fanboy to participant and chronicler of street artists both in France and L.A. where he runs a clothing business. The genesis of the video is his stockpile of videos of him following street artists. Eventually, he was given an intro to Banksy and started filming a documentary on him, but was utterly incapable of editing it into something that made sense. So Banksy took over. The narrative flipped from Banksy to Thierry as the main character. The story now followed how Thierry morphed into Mr. Brainwash (MBW) - a street artist with celebrity rather than street cred.

MBW launched his career with an official Banksy endorsement, which made his inaugural show in L.A. a smashing success, leading to unbelievable commissions, such as designing a Madonna album cover image. Yet, by the end of the movie, Banksy indicates that he regrets encouraging the career of MBW. Adding to the irony of the situation, it’s unclear if MBW is aware of this slag Thierry’s art career. Just what Thierry understands of his situation appears limited. He carries on with his street art inspired work with a feel-good vibe that is completely contrary to his hero, while aping his style. There have even been suggestions that Thierry’s art career is a prank created by Banksy - which he denies.

Exit Through the Gift Store provides a great introduction and insight into Banksy and his art, stunts, pranks and practice. It’s an epic journey to see someone who started out as a vandal now continuing to offer biting and funny social criticism. How much of it is genuine and how much is he messing with our heads is something we may never fully know

What makes the documentary unique is the Thierry narrative - a mid-stream role reversal between subject and filmmaker. 

Engaging, funny, informative and ambiguous. A great introduction into the very public hidden life of Banksy.

Ai Wei Wei: Never Story, and official page, is the story of the artist as political activist and dissident. Ai Wei Wei has made it a part of his art to always poke fun at authority and society, most successfully in subtle, ambiguous or humourous ways but frequently in very direct and angry ways. His tipping point was the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, he was transformed from critic to opposition icon. Prior to that he was a celebrity for his work on the Beijing Olympic Stadium - the remarkable bird’s nest.

This documentary tracks his artistic path, including a formative stay in New York City that amped up his oppositional tendencies. It tracks him on a return visit to New York as well as shows in Germany and especially the preparation and opening of his triumph at Tate Modern in 2011-12. All the time, this trickster was making the authorities progressively steam as he became an ever more public lightning rod of opposition to the Chinese regime. From surveillance, harassment and eventually jailing and taking his passport, Ai Wei Wei has been under increasing and usually unpredictable pressure. He continues to work and produce, never knowing where or when another attack or arbitrary change might come from. The pressure on him must certainly take its toll after so many years. On one occasion, he was beaten during an arrest and suffered what could have been a fatal brain hemorrhage. Of course, this is now part of his artistic work.

Shortly after watching this documentary in fall 2013, I visited his According to What? show at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He also had an installation at Nuit Blanche 2013 in Toronto. Ai’s art is largely conceptual, something for which I am still acquiring a taste. The work I appreciate the most is when he uses traditional Chinese woodworking techniques to both critique the Chinese economic policies and suggest his love for his country. Wrapping it up in a trickster’s sense of humour always adds the spice of ambiguity, leaving me questioning whether I have really understood the message. The most moving piece of the show, and shown extensively in the movie, is his tribute to the children who died in poorly built schools during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Ai collected literally tons of mangled steel reinforcement bars from these schools, had them straightened and now installs them on floors in large rectangles which are wavy and also suggest the meeting of tectonic plates. Beside this installation is a wall covered with the names of 5,000+ children who died along with a recording of people reading the names of the children. This is a moving tribute but most of his other works are less direct and can be interpreted in various ways.

In much of his work, there is explicit anger, shown in such works as his series of photos of famous world locations with him giving the finger in the foreground, now become his signature image. Or his relentless tweeting and filming of the harassment of the authorities that he undertakes. He also uses expletives in many of his works in both Chinese and English.

The movie could also be called A Picture of the Artist as World Famous Dissident. And while he might like such a title, the reality of his daily life and artistic production under unfavourable circumstances leaves me admiring his commitment and strength of character. Fortunately, I don’t have to wonder if I could function under such pressure. He is one of the most famous living artists in the world for a reason. 

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, 2012, is perhaps the most exasperating documentary about an artist I have watched. 

That exasperation is two-fold. First, I have difficulty wrapping my mind around performance art. It’s not theatre, because what the artists do is real. I was impressed by many of Marina’s performances of the past, mainly because she has embodied art’s desire to shock through her work. She certainly did that in many cases, even putting her own life in danger in some of her performances, including sitting by passively while audience members were allowed to use objects beside her on stage to do whatever they wanted. Those objects included knives and a gun and a bullet. Performance art is provocative through actions like these and many others that include self-mutilation, real or implied violence as well as ample nudity (at least in Marina’s case). It comes as no surprise that several artists have died in the course of their performances. If the core of performance art is to shock, she certainly has succeeded to do so, grabbing our attention and becoming the recognized leader of this type of art. The second exasperation of this move is when Marina speaks about her art, she becomes very hard to follow. I have heard her in this movie and other occasions, and I always feel frustrated that I have not understood her point. This is not entirely uncommon for visual artists of any type, but it does contrast with the times she tells the story of her life. Those episodes are are touching, forthcoming and completely engaging.

Back to the documentary, the strongest insight came in the summary by the curator of her retrospective at MoMA who said that her initial work was about working by herself, the next stage was working with her life and art partner Ulay and the third period is about working with and engaging her audience. That becomes clear when seeing the enormous crowds of people who lined up for days to be able to sit in silence in front of her as part of The Artist is Present show. That’s all is was, just come, sit in silence and look into her eyes. At least some viewers broke into tears and apparently one person stayed for three hours. MoMA broke its attendance record with this show. In the lead up, she said that she did not know if this concept would work, perhaps she would go hours without anyone venturing to sit with her. Obviously, the performance tapped into something that resonated deeply with the public. Her 40+ years of art making leading up to the show was distilled into this performance. My sense is that most performance art remains simply something of interest for a small group of insiders, but as its leading proponent, she has achieved a success that no other has achieved to date.


The movie follows the preparation of the two elements of the show - the live performance as well as the retrospective that accompanied it. The enigma of performance art still remains for me, but I have a greater appreciation of its potential power. And while I still would like Marina to explain her art in a way I can understand better, The Artist is Present show has spoken louder than any words and I hope future shows will continue her success.

Gerhard Richter Painting, 2011, delivers what the title promises - a modern master at work - which is both the beauty and limitation of the film.

Richter is the world’s foremost living artist and the documentary shows him, mainly in his studio, in 2009. Breaks occur to cover his exhibitions at leading galleries on both sides of the Atlantic that were either in preparation or occurring at that time. These shows, mostly retrospectives, illustrate his immense range for both realistic and abstract painting as well as his creative handling of subject and materials. They expand the perspective of the studio scenes, which show him working on a large-scale abstract series.

The painting scenes track him from underpainting and then to either large or very large squeegees to move paint around the canvases - either layering on or removing paint. Long periods of silence show him going through these back and forth stages - including frequent angst and dissatisfaction. In terms of watching an artist at work, this is the best documentary I have seen. It illustrates his process from beginning to end - at least in a few cases. Apparently, even when he decides a painting is done, he frequently pulls it back and continues to work on it some more.

The movie’s drawback is Richter himself as he is shy and frequently inarticulate. He accepts the fact that he must be out in public and seems to do it graciously if uncomfortably when necessary. As he comments at one point, he cannot paint when being followed by a camera. Further, his explanations of his work are often challenging and filled with painful silences. It is hard to follow the logic of what he wants to say. He was a tough subject for the filmmaker who did her best to draw him out but he clearly prefers to show his final products and not have to talk about how he work or his process. Certainly, he is a thoughtful person and has had a life full of challenges - born in Nazi Germany, growing up in East Germany, defecting to West Germany in the 1960s and never being able to see his parents again. He has internalized all these things, but finds it difficult to speak meaningfully about them.

Gerhard Richter Painting opens a window onto a modern painting giant, offering at least some insights into his process, techniques and struggles. Much lesser artists can draw comfort from seeing the challenges he also faces after more than 50 years as a painter.

Manufactured Landscapes is the 2006 documentary that follows Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky as he travels around the world to create his disconcerting landscape photos showing humanity's impact on the environment in specific locations on a scale that is usually hard to fully comprehend. His photos drive home the environmental message with which we have been bombarded, but in a way that is arresting. Once you look, you are drawn in. The ambiguity results from the interplay of the stunning beauty of his photos while also being disconcerting - in good conscience we should not see beauty in such destruction. As he says, we prefer to push these places out of our consciousness, but that does not make them any less real and in many cases, exploitative of the people who work there, notably the Bangladesh ship breaking yards where old ships go to die. 

The bulk of the documentary is set in China where he documents the industrial expansion of that country and its effects, largely on the landscape and by extension on the country's people. The film's unforgettable opening is a five minute, unrelenting shot through unending benches for workers in a Chinese factory. It immediately drives home the sense of scale that he documents and only ends with the photos he took at the location as well as interviews with workers and others to explain the factory's organization and the way of life of those who work there.

Burtynsky explains his series in a TED Talk from 2005 where his thoughtfulness shines. My only disappointment is his dancing around whether he is an environmentalist. As an artist, I know he wants to ask questions rather than adopt a specific viewpoint or preferred solution. That is the usual role of artists but the reality of his photos underlines the environmentalist viewpoint, even if most of us are quite happy to reap the benefits of environmental degradation through a prosperous lifestyle, a position he also acknowledges is his own.

Over the years, I have been to a number of Burtynsky's exhibits at various museums and galleries, most recently his Watermark series that is also accompanied by a documentary. The photos are always large and carefully considered from the starting point of seeking out an image to final production. Spontaneity is not the point of his work. For me, the most telling point of his process goes back to the description of his turning point as a landscape photographer when he got lost driving in the United States and happened to find a quarry at hand. Seeing its ugly beauty, he knew that he had to explore that line of imagery or become a calendar landscape photographer. 

He continues developing that initial insight and sharing his powerful vision of a world wounded by our activity that he renders beautiful, while also disturbing for what it shows us about what we would prefer not to see about ourselves.

If you only want to understand the power of modern art, watch Waste Land, the 2010 documentary about Brazilian born artist Vik Muniz. 

Muniz's practice is based on drawing with the most unexpected of all materials - sugar, back hoes, spaghetti. This documentary follows him on a project in Jardim Gramacho, at the time the world's largest garbage landfill in Rio de Janeiro. He enlists the recyclers who live nearby and work in the landfill to help him sift through material and pose for photographs that he will draw with garbage.

For me, the most telling moment was when the finished products of his work - a photo series - went on sale at a big London auction. All the other work at the show seemed ironic and detached. It felt like the artists were laughing at us if we were not in on the joke. Muniz was there with some of the those who worked with him and lived in Jardim Gramacho. It was a moment of exquisite humanity but seemingly characteristic of Muniz for whom fame and celebrity have not made him lose his connection to people.

Unlike most other movies about artists that always include side interviews with their assistants, for this project his assistants are people who live just above the poverty line and take pride in their work even if it is easy to find it repulsive. In other documentaries, the assistants are all artists as well, seeking to learn from a master but fully immersed in the world of art. That telling difference with other documentaries shows how Muniz has maintained a connection with people despite being one of the world's leading artists. 

Along with the refreshing humanity that he brings to his work, Muniz is also an imaginative innovator, finding new and different ways to draw with the most unexpected materials that carry their own story and meaning to his art. I often hear people comment that today's art will not stack up against the art of past centuries. I believe Muniz's art will stand the test of time because of his artistic talent but also because of the humanity he expresses in his art.

Thanks for reading!