As the testing week approaches here's a list of a few terrific films on art and artists for inspiration that all happen to be available on Netflix streaming right now along with a few others below that aren't but are worth getting a hold of in helping to keep the creative juices flowing.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Director: Alison Klayman
This compelling documentary explores three years in the life of celebrated Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who uses social media and his art to inspire protests against the state, and suffers government persecution for his actions.
Director: Banksy
Filmmaker Thierry Guetta's project to chronicle the underground world of street art takes a fascinating twist when he meets elusive stencil artist Banksy, who turns the project around to film Guetta while he reinvents himself as a street artist.
Controversial, charismatic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is the subject of this insightful documentary from director Tamra Davis, who has uncovered a never-before-seen interview with the artist conducted before his untimely death at the age of 27.
Director Arne Glimcher (The Mambo Kings) and narrator-producer Martin Scorsese present this art-filled documentary that explores the connection between cinema and the Cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Extraordinary film clips from Georges Méliès and others offer a cinephile's delight, as interviews with filmmakers, artists and historians, including Scorsese, Chuck Close, and Julian Schnabel, give insightful commentary.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Exploring the life and work of influential French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, this captivating documentary tells the story of a camera-shy photographer whose vision quietly shaped the emerging field of photojournalism. Focusing primarily on the artist's career from the 1940s to the '60s, the film features memorable images of Marilyn Monroe, Henri Matisse, the liberation of Paris and the death of Gandhi.
Director: Lucy Walker, Karen Harley, João Jardim
Renowned artist Vik Muniz embarks on one of the most inspired collaborations of his career, joining creative forces with Brazilian garbage pickers who mine treasure from the trash heaps of Rio de Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho landfill.
Director: Thomas Riedelsheimer
This astonishing documentary from Thomas Riedelsheimer shadows renowned sculptor Andy Goldsworthy as he creates works of art with ice, driftwood, leaves, stone, dirt and snow in open fields, beaches, rivers, creeks and forests. With each new creation, he carefully studies the energetic flow and transitory nature of his work. The film won the Golden Gate Award Grand Prize for Best Documentary at the 2003 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Director Terry Zwigoff spent six years compiling this portrait of the underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, an animation cult hero whose characters Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural became counterculture icons. Candid interviews with Crumb's friends, family and the artist himself render a compelling profile of a tormented man who transcended a harrowing upbringing. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Director: Vanessa Gould
Filmmaker Vanessa Gould takes you on a provocative odyssey into the mesmerizing world of modern origami, where artists and scientists use the ancient art form to craft works of delicate beauty and to model cutting-edge mathematical theories. Pushing the envelope of origami to include caricatured portraits and elaborate abstract designs, these experts examine how paper folding can reveal the profound connection between art, science and philosophy.
Director: Sydney Pollack
In this intimate documentary, Sydney Pollack explores the signature style of architect Frank Gehry, whose famous works include the Fish in Barcelona, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and various residences. Pollack starts with Gehry's original sketches and follows their evolution from a 3D model to a computer-assisted rendition, on to construction and, finally, to the polished finished product.
We use it every day on our computers, we see it on street signs -- and we take it for granted. Now, Gary Hustwit's unique documentary introduces us to Helvetica, a font whose readability has made it the most popular font in the world.
Basquiat
Director: Julian Schnabel
Director Julian Schnabel's biopic won an Independent Spirit Award for its depiction of Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric rise in New York's art world, his anguish over his family, and his hatred of a society that both courted and exploited him. In 1981, Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) was a 19-year-old graffiti artist living on the streets. Eight years later, he was a world-renowned painter -- and the tragic victim of his own addiction.
Director: Nathaniel Kahn
Documentarian Nathaniel Kahn examines the life and career of his father, architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974), whose work included the Salk Institute and the Parliament and Capitol Buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Among other surprising facts, the Oscar-nominated film reveals that the elder Kahn died of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom, unidentified and broke despite having been one of the century's most influential visionaries.
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