Meet the Filmmaker
Meet the Filmmaker: Don Freeman
“Art House”
Date: Thursday, February 5, 2015
Location: NY NATAS, 1375 Broadway (between 37th and 38th Streets), Suite 2103
Reception: 6:00-6:30 PM ~ Program: 6:30-8:00 PM
*Free to NY NATAS Members!
$15 for those without current NY NATAS membership.
Produced & Moderated by Sumner Jules Glimcher.
Some artists don’t just create masterpieces -- they live in them. Photographer Don Freeman's poetic journey through 11 houses artists built for themselves. A love song in film to the places art lives.
Narrated by Author and critic Alastair Gordon, Art House is a journey into the private worlds created by a handful of America's most eminent artists and designers, from the romantic (Hudson River School painter Frederic Church's “Olana”) to the futuristic (urbanist Paolo Soleri's silt-casted structure “Cosanti”). When New York based photographer/filmmaker Don Freeman moves his camera slowly through the rooms of the artists’ houses in Art House he does what words cannot-- he evokes the creative magic that animated each of them. Art House is Freeman’s own durable work of art. Each of the homes and studios in Art House; Russel Wright's “Manitoga” and Henry Chapman Mercer's “Fonthill” are deeply imbued with the unique vision of its creator, and a physical embodiment of what it means to be an artist, to live an integrated life dedicated to art. For the most part the artists were not architects, and built over a lifetime (Henry Varnum Poor's “Crow House”, and Maverick artist Raoul Hague) giving each place a sense of resonance and duration that most architecture doesn't possess. George Nakashima and Paolo Soleri, who did train as architects, gave precedence to a craft-based approach to building their houses. “It's my hope that the dissemination of this film will bring awareness to these houses so that the public will support and experience them in person." Art House reconnects art with its architectural context, a recurrent theme in the history of art and architecture. Don's work reminds us of the origins of art works within the all-encompassing architectural environment, and Art House demonstrates that works of art are not separate from the place in which they originate, even in our modern world.
Don Freeman is an American photographer, best known for his large, monochrome prints that depict subject matter, be it landscape, human forms or architectural fragments, in states of transmogrification. He lives in New York where he divides his time between fine art photography, commercial photography and filmmaking. His assignments for The World of Interiors, documenting the homes of American artists like Eva Zeisel, Wharton Esherick, Russel Wright, James Rose and Henry Varnum Poor, reflects his deep interest in art and its place in living environments and became the book Artists' Handmade Houses (Abrams, 2011) and the basis for the film Art House. Completed in Nov of 2014, Art House is currently only available to the public for private screenings upcoming festivals in the US and Europe, and password protected download on Vimeo.
Space is limited. You must RSVP to info@nyemmys.org to reserve a seat. Please write “Art House” in the Subject Box.
Location:
NY NATAS