Film about painter Antonio Lopez Garcia

[Ron Rizzo]

Folks,

If you live in New England, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is screening
Victor Erice's award-winning film about contemporary Spanish painter
Antonio Lopez Garcia on 3 or 4 days in July (10th, 17th & 24th??) in
its Remis Auditorium:

DREAMS OF LIGHT, Victor Erice, Spain, 138 minutes, 1990?, winner of
the Best Documentary? award at the Cannes Film Festival

The October 1993 issue of Art in America has a long (well-written and
-illustrated) article on Lopez Garcia by Max Kozloff. The painter uses
an excruciating style to record acutely observed subjects in minute detail,
yet in a way that keeps his paintings, drawings, scultures and reliefs
not only painterly but playful in unexpected ways that invoke basic aesthetic
issues. It's not really "literalist" realism or photorealism.

(Consult the Art in America article to see just what you can do with a pencil
and a piece of paper. Another incredible draftsperson is Latvian-American
artist Vija Celmins, who I believe is covered by another article in the same
issue.)

The feature film follows Lopez Garcia through the execution of a single work,
a painting of a quince tree in his backyard. Kozloff's article describes
how the painter attached plumb bobs to individual branches to measure their
gradual relative droop as the fruit grew during the course of the painting,
which took many months. Again, the aim of sinking plumb bobs was not
realism, but something else, but I'll let you see the film to find out.

I'll consult my copy of the MFA film schedule tonight and post the dates
and times tomorrow.

Regards,
Ron