Painters Painting (1973)
(Emile de Antonio, US 1973, 116 min., 16mm)
Warhol. A famous Pop Art origin story: Andy Warhol’s friend and agent Emile de Antonio advised the artist that his 1962 painting of an unadorned Coca-Cola bottle was “our society, it’s who we are, it’s absolutely beautiful and naked.” Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, de Antonio made a series of potent political documentaries, in the midst of which he filmed Painters Painting, in which he interviews artists in their studios—among them Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Frank Stella. One interview stands out from all the rest: Warhol, who sits on a couch beside Factory denizen Brigid Berlin facing a mirror. De Antonio films into the mirror from behind them, and Warhol deflects de Antonio’s questions to Brigid.
Introduction by Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History, University of Rochester.