MY KID COULD PAINT THAT d: Amir Bar-Lev
My Kid Could Paint That (2007)
Direction: Amir Bar-Lev
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
In a real sense, the 83-minute documentary My Kid Could Paint That is one of the most disgusting films of all time. It disgusts because
a) it so vividly displays the utter nonsense and stupidity of the modern art scamming that has gone on for the last half century or more (especially in Abstract Expressionism) — and that’s a good thing; and
b) it so vividly displays the exploitation of an innocent child, Marla Olmstead, to meet the personal and psychological demands and needs of her Mark and Laura — and that’s a bad thing.
Basically, the film, released in 2007, follows the rise and fall, in 2004 and 2005, of a young girl hailed as a ‘Pint-Sized Pollock’ (Jackson, that is) — not to be confused with other claimed child painterly prodigies such as the ‘Pint-Sized Picasso’ of the 1990s (whodat?). Over the course of several months, we see Marla’s rise to celebrity after an opportunistic Binghamton, New York, art gallery owner and photorealistic painter ‘discovers’ Marla. A local newspaper reporter then does a profile, and soon the child is declared a ‘prodigy’ by the New York Times and its arts editor, Michael Kimmelman. Suddenly, the local sensation becomes a global phenomenon, with addle-brained ‘art lovers’ lining up to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the girl genius’ latest ‘masterpiece.’
Then, reality sets in as a February 2005 exposé by 60 Minutes shows that the little girl, when left to her own devices, paints badly. Well, pretty much as she always did. The odd part is that the exposé is supposed to show that Marla could not paint ‘masterpieces’ alone, but only with her dad’s help. (He is an amateur painter, himself.) Yet, the painting is no better or worse than the crap that sells at auctions.
A child psychologist is shown a secretly recorded video of Marla painting a particular piece, and it takes this woman to state the obvious: Marla is just swooshing paint around a canvas with no plan. Yet, this is held to be different from her other obviously unplanned drips-and-drab paintings. The only difference is that the claimants for Marla — and her detractors — all tacitly assent that there is something ‘better’ about the auctioned paintings. All this proves is that both the claimants and detractors have been sipping the same Kool-Aid, because the so-called ‘masterpieces’ are clearly slopped and glopped crap, too.
No one, however, recognizes this — not the parents, not the assorted art dealers, not the 60 Minutes folks, not the reporters who cover the tale, nor even this film’s documentarian, Amir Bar-Lev. Which raises a question — or at least it should. And that question is not the one My Kid Could Paint That focuses on — whether or not Marla painted the paintings claimed to be hers. The real question should have been: why was such obviously dreadful art attracting attention, because even if Marla herself had painted them, clearly anyone could — animals, retards, fetuses — on a whim, and in only twenty or so minutes.
And the amazing thing is that the film answers both questions unwittingly. Through a series of interviews it becomes clear that Marla’s father helped her paint the paintings and that her mother was likely clueless as to that reality, at least in front of the cameras. But in answer to the more cogent query mentioned above, My Kid Could Paint That provides plenty of answers as well.
We see archival footage of Jackson Pollock doing one of his drip canvases, and it’s abundantly clear that there is no rhyme or reason to it. Why? First, there is simple observation of the act. Second, there is the simple recognition of what is left on the canvas. Third, and most importantly, is the fact that since the Abstract Expressionist’s drip paintings lacked any coherent style, it has been easy as hell to fool so-called art critics, experts, and historians with so-called ‘forgeries’ of Pollock — although technically they would be frauds, not forgeries, since there is ‘no style’ to forge.
Just do a quick online search and the ability to deceive these fools is abundant. So, why do suckers still fall for this crap? In this case, the likely answer is the story behind the paintings — the very idea that Marla Olmstead might be a prodigy. But if her ‘skill,’ as shown in the 60 Minutes footage, is nonexistent, and the result is generic AbEx crap, only the idea of a child genius could be the lure. Yet, Bar-Lev uses archival footage of real child prodigies — such as a boy violinist — and the contrast with Marla is great. The violinist clearly has great skills, whereas Marla has none.
However, this is not the focus of the documentary. Instead, Bar-Lev makes the wrong choice of following the fall of the Olmstead clan, as Marla’s painting prices plummet. Yet, why? If the works are really genius, who cares if that genius is Marla, her dad, or the two working in concert? Yet, we see that many of Marla’s patrons, post-60 Minutes, are calling and demanding their money back. Why? Because they don’t care for the supposed ‘art,’ just what they see as a business investment that may tank. Herein lies another clue to the utter phoniness and marketing-heavy domination of the art world — there’s not an ounce of care for the work itself, merely what profit can be made off of it.
So why wouldn’t Bar-Lev follow that angle, if not the angle that the art itself sucks? Most likely, because My Kid Could Paint That is just the logical extension of that profiteering. From the dim parents, the semi-sleazy gallery owner Anthony Brunelli, and the none-too-bright local reporter Elizabeth Cohen to the out of touch Times critic Michael Kimmelman, the 60 Minutes crowd, and Bar-Lev, everyone seems to be in the business of exploiting this child. Brunelli, for one, switches his opinions on Marla’s art from initial claims of genius to claiming to have ‘known’ the work was not that good — right after the 60 Minutes episode — to again declaiming Marla’s greatness once the family films the child painting to prove that she really could paint (so as to reassure investors). Yet, this painting is just as ridiculously bad as all the rest. There simply is no artistic talent or skill on display, ever!
The fact that others claim Marla can only create her so called ‘masterpieces’ when alone and not subject to verification should, even if one were to accept that dubious notion that there’s any qualitative difference between any of her glops, point the way to the fraudulence of the whole episode because this is exactly the sort of thing proponents of all sorts of supernatural acts claim: from spoon-bending to UFO abductions, from paintings by toddlers or to the Virgin Mary’s appearance, the act of observation irreducibly destroys the result.
As My Kid Could Paint That ends, the parents and Bar-Lev seem to be at an impasse, with the filmmaker disbelieving the claims that Marla painted the paintings alone, but … so what? He still does not realize that either way they are garbage and that he wasted a couple of years of his life on a subject that is utterly worthless. If only Bar-Lev had wanted to do a documentary exploring the meaning and history of art, he should have focused his camera’s eye on the life of a worthwhile and great artist — someone who really could have used the little bit of publicity resulting from a Sundance Film Festival screening — to actually bring forth great art and ideas into the public arena. Instead, Bar-Lev wastes his talents on a story that means nothing, and an issue that is so clear-cut as to beg the question, Why do it? Aside from joining the queue of exploiters, the only possible reason is that Bar-Lev was as much of a dupe as the others.
The My Kid Could Paint That DVD, put out by Sony Pictures, is quite good. (The film is shown in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.) The audio commentary by Brunelli and the film’s editor, John Walter, is nothing spectacular. Brunelli shows he knows little of art, even if he has some skill of his own, and Walter is just dull, with no real insights into the Olmsteads or Bar-Lev.
There is also the 35-minute documentary Back to Binghamton, wherein Bar-Lev is seen still equivocating over the documentary and its meaning, while speaking to dullards at the Sundance Film Festival. The best part of this featurette, however, is a brief interview with a local artist who rejected Marla’s entry into a Woman’s Art festival because
a) she did not think the art was good,
b) did not think the child did the art alone, and
c) read Marla’s ‘Artistic Statement,’ which clearly was not written by a 4-year-old — especially one who can barely speak clearly herself.
(In the statement ‘Marla’ even references Ozzy Osbourne. This sequence should have been in the final film because, even for non-believers, this is a smoking cannon, not merely a smoking gun. That Bar-Lev did not include it suggests, again, that he did not realize its import or that his film is simply part of the Marla Media Machine.)
MY KID COULD PAINT THAT Part II
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Tags: Amir Bar-Lev, Art, Child Prodigies, Documentaries, DVDs, Film Reviews, Marla Olmstead, Michael Kimmelman, My Kid Could Paint That, Painters
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3 Responses to “MY KID COULD PAINT THAT d: Amir Bar-Lev”
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Interesting review, Dan. Another fact so obvious it’s amazing nobody noticed (or maybe they just didn’t want to notice): virtually all genuine child prodigies are INTERPRETIVE, not CREATIVE, artists. A child violinist or pianist or child actor puts flesh on the skeleton an ADULT composer or director/screenwriter has built. That’s a different sort of thing to what a painter (or poet, or novelist) does. Literature and painting are solitary arts performed by a single individual alone. But violin virtuosi or brilliant child actors are adding to a work of substance that already exists: either a musical score or a screenplay/stage play.
Common sense should tell anyone this Marla kid couldn’t have been a prodigy in the same sense some boy violinist was.
Good point, Hack.
“In the statement ‘Marla’ even references Ozzy Osbourne.”
Haven’t seen the movie or read the statement attributed to Marla, but I don’t think referencing Ozzy would itself necessarily disqualify the thing as having been written by a four-year-old. It’s entirely likely that she could have learned about Ozzy from her grandparents or even her parents, as he remains popular and well-known to this day.