Mark Lombardi - Art and Conspiracy
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Mark Lombardi - Art and Conspiracy |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2012 |
| length | 79 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mareike Wegener |
| script | Mareike Wegener |
| production | Titus Kreyenberg, unafilm |
| music | Kevin Haskins Dompe |
| camera | Sophie Maintigneux |
| cut | Mareike Wegener, Eli Cortiñas |
| occupation | |
| |
Mark Lombardi - Art and Conspiracy is a documentary by the German filmmaker Mareike Wegener about the work of the American artist Mark Lombardi .
content
The film deals with the work of the artist Mark Lombardi , who died in 2000 and who has been working on a series of drawings since the early 1990s, which he called Narrative Structures (in German: Narrative, or Narrative Structures). These ontologies , based on public information, are hand-made pencil drawings that visually process and reveal the connections between individuals, state institutions, banks, companies and governments that can be represented by transactions in kind and money. These panoramas, which make the global structure underlying money laundering and corruption visible and which, due to their formal reference to network graphics, represent a contemporary modification of history painting, deal with international political scandals such as the Iran-Contra affair (Oliver North, Lake Resources of Panama , and the Iran Contra Operation, ca.1986–1986 (4th Version), 1999) , the dubious career in the oil business of George W. Bush before he took up his first political office (George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and Jackson Stephens , approx. 1979–1990 (5th version), 1999) , or the biggest international financial scandal of the time in connection with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI-ICIC & FAB, 1972–1991 (4th version), 1996–2000) .
The question of the effectiveness of the information linked by Lombardi and the resulting secret service interest in his work as well as the circumstances of his early death mark the starting point of the film and are discussed via the montage of video archive material (which Lombardi has his artistic and research-based creative processes describe himself), further interview passages, news material, atmospheric shots of the city of New York and cinematic images of the drawings themselves in the course of the film.
The entry of art into the sphere of influence of politics is a focus of the cinematic debate and is exacerbated by the comparison with Picasso's Guernica and its imposition in the New York UN building on the occasion of the Security Council meeting on February 4, 2003 on the invasion of Iraq. The film closes with the key statement that art can support or generate the possibility of political and social change.
publication
Mark Lombardi - Art and Conspiracy celebrated its world premiere in the documentary film competition at the Max Ophüls Prize in Saarbrücken in January 2012. Other festivals such as Planete + Doc Warsaw, Sheffield Doc / Fest, Brooklyn Film Festival and Zurich Film Festival followed.
The film was released in German cinemas on May 31, 2012 by Real Fiction Filmverleih . In the fall of the same year it ran daily for a week in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The DVD was released in Germany on June 21, 2013.
A theatrical release for the USA is planned for autumn 2013.
reception
“Finally, 'Mark Lombardi - Art and Conspiracy', a documentary film in which Mareike Wegener traces the riddle of the New York artist of the same name, was extremely exciting (...) Art shows us how the artist's brain works, and if you add information about money and Collects power, the cinema can be really dangerous again. "
“Mareike Wegener confidently paves her way through the madness of a work that has the madness of the world as its theme. With clear film language and clear narration, she creates an art and artist portrait that does not want to be a work of art itself. Your praise is due for that. "
“The film cleverly balances private obsession - that New York eccentricity that Ginsberg and Co. developed in the fifties - and state paranoia, between biographical and political effects. The pictures remain abstract in their vibrations. "
“The delicate, conceptual drawings by Mark Lombardi attempt to depict the large, intertwined networks of money and power behind the BCCI scandal or the Iran-Contra affair. One would like a similar explanation about Lombardi and his work during Mareike Wegener's frustrating self-evident documentary. "
“Lombardi, like his eccentric worldview, can best be outlined without a rigid narrative. In this way, Wegener subtly mimes the visual language of the deceased artist, providing a flood of information that we have to actively deal with. It is this impressive quality - the ability to process information in a meaningful way - that one has come to appreciate when the lights in the theater come on again. "
Web links
- Mark Lombardi - Art and conspiracy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Trailer on YouTube
- The abyss looks back . Wegener in an interview in MONOPOL, May 2012
- Wegener in an interview . Filmmaker Magazine, September 2012 (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Material for the film launch website, Real Fiction Filmverleih
- ^ MoMA film exhibition website, September 2012
- ^ "Lombardi" acquired by Submarine Deluxe IndieWire, February 2013
- ↑ The Shitty World Editing - Das Filmmagazin, April 2012
- ^ To Artist Who Delineated the Money . The New York Times, September 12, 2012
- ^ Mareike Wegener's 'Mark Lombardi: Death-Defying Acts Of Art And Conspiracy' Opens At MoMA . The Huffington Post, September 14, 2012