My Kid Could Paint That, or What is a Painter?


Cross-posted at The Chutry Experiment, but I thought New Critics readers might be interested in some of the questions about authorship raised in Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary about child painter Marla Olmstead, My Kid Could Paint That.

My Kid Could Paint That (IMDB), Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary focuses on Marla Olmstead, a four-year old child painter who took the art world by storm with her abstract paintings, and the subsequent controversy about whether (or how) her father, who had also been an amateur painter, might have contributed to some or all of the paintings. The film almost demands that we as viewers make a choice about whether Marla, who is now six, did all of the work on her paintings. In fact, the film is so adamant about introducing this controversy that I found myself resisting the particular question of whether Marla’s parents might be conning art world dupes, as the film implies, and wanting instead to ask larger questions about art and authorship, about abstract art and meaning, and about art and capital. While the film touches lightly on some of these questions, Bar-Lev’s stubborn insistence on selling the controversy rather than exploring what the controversy means left a number of important questions unanswered and, in some cases, unaddressed.

For what it’s worth, I saw no specific evidence that led me to believe, with any certainty, that Marla’s parents are guilty of the charges levied against them, although I’m not terribly interested in resolving that question. But I think it’s worth addressing the basics of the controversy in order to address some of the larger questions the film glosses. Bar-Lev hinges his own “crisis of faith” almost entirely on Charlie Rose’s hatchet job 60 Minutes interview with a child psychologist, Ellen Winner, who indicated that she regarded Marla as a “normal” child who could not have produced the paintings in question and that one of the paintings we see her produce is “less polished” than other works purportedly authored by Marla. Bar-Lev also seems to make much hay out of the fact that Marla doesn’t–and cannot–talk about her paintings in the language of the art world that voraciously consumes them, but he does little to explore how those meanings are constructed (although Bar-Lev’s comic depiction of a collector who claims to see figures standing next to a “blue door” in one of Marla’s paintings is treated with the right comic touch). Similarly, Roger Ebert has flatly insisted, without offering specific evidence, that Marla could not have produced some of the paintings attributed to her, speculating that Marla’s father is using her as a gimmick to introduce his own paintings into teh art world. In response to the authorship controversy, the Olmsteads have since recorded videos of Marla working on paintings from beginning to end, with some of them running about five hours (making them into cinema verite filmmakers themselves, although whether these videos are evidence that Marla has independently produced all of her paintings remains an open, unanswerable question).

But instead of taking the controversy at face value, I kept wanting to ask the question about why it matters that Marla is the sole author of her paintings and, perhaps more importantly, how that notion of authorship supports the incredible investments of capital in the art world (or, more precisely in the works of specific painters). As I watched the film, I found myself thinking about how authorship is constructed in other media, including film and literature. For example, no one would argue that T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” is a lesser poem because he received help from Ezra Pound. There is no crisis of faith when we realize that a film crew assisted a director in the making of a movie. To be sure, the high finance of the art world is at least partially contingent upon what Walter Benjamin referred to as the “aura,” the uniqueness of the original object itself, but it seems as if this controversy almost depends on a Romantic notion of authorship that needed to be complicated.

The controversy over Marla’s art also depends in part on a stubborn refusal to acknowledge how abstract artists are engaging with thorny philosophical and formal issues. While Bar-Lev does interview Michael Kimmelman, an art critic from The New York Times, providing more context for how abstract art fits within historical and political contexts could have helped. Instead, we are generally presented with art collectors with too much money to spend projecting their own meanings into Marla’s paintings. Abstract art essentially becomes decorative, its meanings left up to the subjective appraisal of the viewer. Certainly, Marla’s family has benefited from this perception of abstract art, but the film does little to explain, as Doug Harvey points out, how “expertise” is constructed in the art world. By relying almost solely on Kimmelman as a representative of art criticism, we get a limited understanding of how professional critics read abstract art.

These questions about the degree to which abstract art might itself be a fraud become intertwined with the Binghamton, New York, art gallery owner, Anthony Brunelli, who has been one of the most enthusiastic promoters of Marla’s work. We learn at one point that Brunelli is a hyperrealist painter who may spend months working on a single painting. While he has sold painting for thousands of dollars, it’s clear that he resents the art world’s clamoring over an abstract painting that could be completed in a few hours. Again, I’m not willing to play into the film’s insinuations of a specific hoax (someone is altering Marla’s paintings), but it is clear that Brunelli is fairly cynically manipulating a pliant art market in selling the narrative of Marla as a child prodigy (as a side note, the film does briefly address our need for child prodigies, but I’m not sure it takes this point far enough).

As my comments here certainly imply, there is a lot of interesting material here. I’m not quite convinced that Bar-Lev has handled these questions adequately, however. By focusing solely on his “crisis of faith” over Marla’s authorship, Bar-Lev seems to dodge the thornier questions about the degree to which concepts of authorship, value, and meaning in the art world are themselves contingent in the first place.

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December 1st, 2007
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Viewing 11 Comments

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    I guess I'll have to see this movie since the subject is one I find fascinating,.
    "Abstract art essentially becomes decorative, its meanings left up to the subjective appraisal of the viewer"--I tend towards this opinion. Authorship, context and meaning are extremely relative concepts to me. I don't mean that it(some human creation) doesn't exist because I think about it, but it's importance is my own construct.
    A couple of other points:
    F for Fake, Welles picture about Clifford Irving and Elmyr d'Hory is a great examination of money and art, authorship and reality.
    Your 'aura' quote from Benjamin reminds me of an interview I heard with Duchamp in which he asserts that no art should outlive it's creator, in fact, that it is 'dead' within a decade or two of it's creation.
    Also, to kind of echo your Eliot point,I was upset to find that Hart Crane, one of my favorites, lifted wholesale from a tubercular young poet, Samuel Greenburg, in his poem, "Emblems of Conduct". What upset me is that Crane made no acknowledgement of his line-lifting, not that he mashed-up the original. Greenberg's work is a mess, while "Emblems" is a fine poem.
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    I should have mentioned F for Fake. My review of Kid was almost entirely shaped by my appreciation of Welles' more reflective take on these issues.

    I'm not sure that I've heard the Duchamp quote, but I like your connection between his critique of the museum and Benjamin's observation that the mechanical reproducibility of art serves as a direct threat to the museum.

    I do think there are some insightful readers (and readings) of abstract art, but it's clear from the film that the people who purchase Marla's art are projecting their own readings (and desires) into the art, that people's fantasies about art, genius, and childhood innocence are being sold back to them.
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    I didn't mean to give the idea that interpretation of abstract art is without value, just that attempts at objective judgment doesn't interest me. I am absolutely enriched by the interpretations of (certain) others and it sometimes helps me triangulate my experience. It's a perspective thing.
    The Duchamp paraphrase comes from an album of interviews and readings called "The Creative Act" on the Sub-Rosa label. I downloaded it off emusic and recommend it, if you like that kind of thing.
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    I should check out the Duchamp interviews. I have a couple of long drives coming up over the holidays and a new iPod with plenty of memory.

    The film is definitely worth tracking down. My initial review conveyed a lot of frustration with the film, but I think that's actually a sign of the ways in which it was tapping into these issues in fairly subtle ways.
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    A number of questions bother me about this, but the value of abstract art and how it's hyped or not isn't my first concern. Hype-away! Rake in all you can, but let your genius child live out his or her childhood without celebrity discussions and documentaries questioning his or her legitimacy.

    If this little girl is hailed as today's Picasso, she'll earn huge sums when money means little to her. Quite likely, and much worse in the long run, she may need to live a long life as a brilliant artist who peaked at age four! Will her work at five warrant another documentary and attendant exhibition?
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    There are a few moments where the filmmaker questions whether he should be exploiting the controversy, but merely by telling this story, the filmmaker is clearly making a decision.

    The mother is somewhat ambivalent about her role in placing her daughter in the public, asking whether Marla will want to have had these experiences (appearing on the Today show, having all of these art openings, etc) when she's 18.

    But these ethical issues are important (and they are addressed in the film), and I probably shouldn't have underplayed them.
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    I don't see why it couldn't be Maria as Abstract art especially abstract expressionism doesn't demand precise technique, so a child could do it and if the father was an artist its more than likely that he would teach her how to paint.
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    Abstract art had been famous for a long time, well we can't hide t his fact for t here are so many talented artist way back
    in the history
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    For what it’s worth, I saw no specific evidence that led me to believe, with any certainty, that Marla’s parents are guilty of the charges levied against them, although I’m not terribly interested in resolving that question. But I think it’s worth addressing the basics of the controversy in order to address some of the larger questions the film glosses
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    Experts have its own way of checking authenticity. But for me, what's important is the dedication of the child painter for her craft. She deserves our applause and not the other way around.
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    A talent is a talent. No matter how doubt erases that notion, still the power of your skill prevails.
 

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