A documentary for people who like Monet, money or both. Director Nathaniel Kahn wants to understand why capitalism fell in love with modern art and talks to a bunch of people with violently opposing views.
Wealthy, pompous, orgiastically self-regarding, Jeff Koons seems to belong on a different planet to obscure, humble painter Larry Poons. What’s fascinating is how the fickle, ever-flexible “market” is prepared to make room for them both.
Even more compelling is a subtle debate about where great art belongs. Sotheby’s bigwig Amy Cappellazzo looks atavistically gleeful when describing how she chases down private collections. She loves the work of Gerhard Richter and is delighted when one of his paintings is snapped up by a billionaire.
Then we meet Richter himself, a super-cool dude who doesn’t want his work to end up in penthouses. He wants them in museums. Cappellazzo, taking this on board, says museums hoard half their treasures in basements, which she compares to “cemeteries”. She and Richter, both articulate, treat what happens to paintings as a matter of life and death. It makes your heart race.
Even more valuable, though, is giggly Jewish collector Stefan Edlis, who discusses, among other things, his affection for a Maurizio Cattelan sculpture called Him. Edlis has the patient air of a “schmuck” (his word) who always gets the last laugh. It’s a pleasure to make his acquaintance.
