Art about struggling artists

Art is very subjective, so documentaries about artists tend to be very subjective as well.

Our City Dreams is a look at five female artists who have ended up in New York for a variety of reasons. I can’t say that I found this to be the most well done documentary in recent years but it does have some interesting things in it as it explores the lives of several Big Apple artistes.

Swoon, the youngest of the documentary’s subjects, is a street artist from Florida. She creates phenomenal sketches on large sheets of newspaper and butcher paper, which she then plasters to walls in public places.

I loved her expressionist view of life in New York City. She manages to create life-sized sketches of people going about their days. The amount of detail is amazing and you are instantly pulled into the emotion of each of her subjects.

Her floating raft art, on the other hand, is a mystery. I didn’t really understand it and the documentary gives no explanation. Swoon says that she wants to travel up and down the river, taking art to people who wouldn’t usually be exposed to it. That’s a little arrogant, but what’s worse is that I don’t really see this ridiculous raft as art.

The second artist, Ghada Amer, was born in Cairo, Egypt. Her art consists of huge pieces of fabric on which she sews dozens of overlapping drawings of nude women masturbating. Sort of like Playboy, only larger than life and on fabric. I didn’t like the canvases myself but I know that a lot of people will find it provocative and beautiful. I just don’t happen to be one of them.

Kiki Smith, another subject of the documentary, is the daughter of Tony Smith, a contemporary and friend of Jackson Pollack. Her art is unusual and interesting. She carves statues of nude people, mostly women, and puts them in unusual poses: a woman squats down and reaches out to something or someone, an inverted torso emerges from a wall and small plaster angels float overhead.

Marina Abramovic is the fourth artist addressed in the film and the only one that I truly hated. In fact, I don’t consider what she’s doing art. Why is cutting a star in your stomach with a razor blade art? Why is standing on a stage nude and whipping oneself art? Why is eating a raw onion before an audience art? Beats me.

The final artist, Nancy Spero, is still creating political art at age 83. In the 1960s, her anti-war paintings were highly controversial, but today they’re kind of ordinary. Still, you have to admire someone who’s been creating art for that long.

Besides the art and artists, there are other things that this film needs help with. First, the camera work is terrible. Some of it is as grainy and sad as a home movie and the rest is a little dull. With documentaries taking on a more creative persona lately, it was disappointing to see one so badly done. I guess the director was trying to make the film as gritty and rough as the city itself, but I think it detracts from the subjects.

Not only that, but there is no commentary as to why this was an interesting enough subject to document. The women are not related in any way and their paths never cross, as far as I could tell. So why these women? What was the point of using this perspective?

Due to the many different camera techniques and the lack of overall explanation, I can only assume that the filmmaker intended the documentary to be art as well. If that’s the case, then it isn’t good art. You could waste the money to go see this documentary or you could go to a local gallery and look at some local artists instead. At least you’d know why they were there.