Most artist documentaries are not good. Their purpose, typically, is to introduce the life and work of an artist to the general public. In their creation, there is an inherent tension between generalization and specificity. With a standardized feature-length running time — anywhere from around 90 to 120 minutes — and the intention of acting as a survey, there is need for condensing. But at the same time, for the film to appeal to an audience who might be aware of the artist and his or her work, there needs to be, in the best examples, some form of reexamination or demythologizing. At this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, two of the more interesting, not completely successful, films were about two artists from different periods and with very different work. What links them together is their desire to provoke. “Burden,” a documentary about the life and work of Chris Burden, presents a common hagiography of its subject. Through a tour of Burden’s career, there is an attempt by the co-directors to look behind the surface of his work, which often, at least in the earlier years, pushed situations to violent extremes. “Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back” is at first similar in its approach. But as the film moves toward its conclusion, it takes a different route, becoming a collaboration with the artist in the retelling, even the obscuring, of his own biography.Chris Burden, who died just short of a year ago at the age of 69, was still alive when the film about his work was being made, and he was able to participate. These moments are the most interesting. Older and softer, the glint of danger in his eyes has now been replaced by something that is more comfortable and calm. He resembles less the artist in his twilight years than a retiree tinkering around in his garage, more interested in his tools than whatever he is building. The work he made later in his career mirrors this — after he moved away from performance concerning the body, simple, almost innocent pleasures dominated: flight, movement, light.The film presents all this rather delicately but has little to say about what the transition means in relation to his work. It is strange that the man who once staged a performance where he had somebody shoot him became a more publicly acceptable, or as the film describes him, “cuddly” figure. Does the change only seem drastic because of the way his early work is described in terms of its integrity? Should the shift be viewed as a progression, regression, or transgression?There’s no simple answer to any of those questions, but they are not even posed by the film, which reinforces the mythic bubble around Burden’s earliest work without ever attempting to puncture it. One gets the sense that the artist was running away from something as his career progressed, but what exactly that was is unclear.“Be Right Back” is also focused on an artist who is running away. Within seconds of the film, Cattelan is referred to as an “artistic conman,” and he wears that title as a badge of honor. The film about his life and work is yet another one of his cons, a biographical sketch that turns out to be as silly as much of his other work. This is intentional, of course, as becomes clear later in the film. “Be Right Back” draws the curtain in front of what we’ve been watching and reveals that much of it was in fact “false.” There is the sense that Cattelan, or at least the filmmakers, think this maneuver has something to say about the tenuous link between truth and biography in art.I’m not sure that it does. Cattelan, through his work — and by proxy through the film, which can be considered an extension of his work — plays with the question of authenticity, but has little to say about it beyond the gesture the film reveals (and if you’re familiar with his work, you’re already aware of). He’s not really engaging with the idea, just wearing another mask. This is another deflection, it could be said, another way to ignore the question. For Burden, the shift in his work can be seen as a similar movement or retreat. There is a desire for the reaction but a difficulty dealing with the consequences.Both films would have done better to ask the questions that the artists are incapable of asking — essentially, perform the role of the critic. But rarely do we see a documentary about an artist that truly takes on his or her work, which stands up to it and questions it. Instead, we get the deepening of established narratives, of art history like a hamster spinning in its wheel.
↧