Reel Artists Film Festival: Stellar Screenings
Promotional image for the film Yayoi Kusama: I Love Me, which shows the internationally famed artist at work. © BBB Inc © Yayoi Kusama
This weekend, the seventh annual Reel Artists Film Festival hits the Al Green Theatre with a smart array of world, Canadian and Toronto premieres. Though some screenings are sold out, there are still seats available for top films on our era’s most iconic artists—and a few rush tickets, too.
On Friday night, award-winning novelist Kerri Sakamoto will introduce the film Yayoi Kusama: I Love Me, a key documentary on a creative icon who is often called Japan’s greatest living artist. Yayoi Kusama’s artwork, which focuses on dots and infinite perspectives, has been shown at the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou, among other prominent institutions, and her work has received critical accolades from the Independent, the New York Times, and Frieze among other outlets.
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El Anatsui Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery |
On Saturday evening, internationally recognized, New York–based curator Susan Vogel introduces the world premiere of her film Fold, Crumple, Crush: The Art of El Anatsui, a lively portrait of the first black African artist to receive the highest levels of world acclaim. The film follows Anatsui from the city of Nsukka, Nigeria, where he lives and works, to the 2007 Venice Biennale, where his massive, gorgeous, evocative sculptures broke through to a wide international art public. El Anatsui’s art is currently being curated for a first-ever career retrospective that will debut at the Royal Ontario Museum in fall 2010 before going to the newly redesigned Museum for African Art in New York in 2011. Vogel’s insightful film on this long-overlooked artist is a must see.
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A still from Two Artists Courtesy Michael Blackwood Productions |
On Sunday afternoon, Reel Artists takes a trip to the artistic power centre of Basel, Switzerland, as Beyeler Foundation head Samuel Keller introduces a Toronto premiere of a film on Ernst Beyeler, one of the most influential art dealers of our time. Beyeler helped the Museum of Modern Art acquire its first Picasso, and was instrumental in creating Art Basel, the world’s most important international art fair. Also showing that afternoon is the Canadian premiere screening of Two Artists: Andrea Zittel and Monika Sosnowska 1:1, which documents an exhibition by Zittel and Sosnowska at the venerable Schaulager space in Basel.
Many screenings—like Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child—are already sold out, with only rush tickets available, and many other screenings are selling quickly. Purchase your tickets today to avoid disappointment! Rush tickets will only be sold at the theatre box office 15 minutes before each screening depending on availability. For more information consult Reel Artists’ online guide at canadianart.ca/raff.
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