Covering Media

Artist Ann Chernow as seen in ART IS... THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION, a film by Manfred Kirchheimer. Picture courtesy First Run Features. All rights reserved.

Art Is...The Permanent Revolution (2012)

Opening: 03/02/2012 Limited

Trailer: Click for trailer

Websites: Home

Genre: Documentary

Rated: Unrated

Synopsis

The anger and outrage captured by graphic artists have defined revolutions through the centuries. Printmakers have depicted the human condition in all its glories and struggles so powerfully that perceptions, attitudes and politics have been dramatically influenced. And the value and impact of this art is even more important today.

In the new documentary, ART IS... THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION, three contemporary American artists and a master printer help explain the dynamic sequences of social reality and protest. Among the wide range of 60 artists on display are Rembrandt, Goya, Daumier, Kollwitz, Dix, Masereel, Grosz, Gropper, and Picasso. While their stirring graphics sweep by, the making of an etching, a woodcut and a lithograph unfolds before our eyes, as the contemporary artists join their illustrious predecessors in creating art of social engagement.

Quad Cinema/NYC Address

34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenue (Avenue of the Americas))

New York, NY 10011

Phone: 212-255-2243

Filmmaker Bio

Manfred Kirchheimer (Director)

Born in 1931 in Germany, Manfred (Manny) Kirchheimer came to the US in 1936 when his family fled the Nazis. He studied film at Hans Richter's Institute of Film Techniques of the City College and spent 24 years in the NY film industry as an editor, director, and cameraman, editing over 300 films for the documentary departments of American television networks, with subjects ranging from cultural programming such as Leonard Bernstein in Venice, for CBS to biography for Time-Life Films as in Krushchev Remembers.

Stations of the Elevated (1980) and We Were So Beloved (1986) are Kirchheimer's most celebrated films. Stations, featured at the New York Film Festival, is a lyrical documentary that follows elevated subway trains that are illicitly painted by slum youths. In We Were So Beloved, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, Kirchheimer probes the experiences and attitudes of Jewish refugees and survivors from Nazi Germany, who had created a community in northern Manhattan's Washington Heights.

Other films Colossus on the River (1963), Haiku (1965), Leroy Douglas (1967), Claw (1968), Short Circuit (1973), Bridge High (1975), Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan (2004) and SprayMasters (2008).