James Castle: Portrait of an Artist

5 september, 2011
Place
Sabatini Building, Auditorium
Jeffrey Wolf. James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, 2008
Jeffrey Wolf. James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, 2008

The artwork of James Castle (1899-1977) remains an unknown factor that has been explored by a monographic exhibition at Philadelphia Museum of Art and another at Museo Reina Sofía.

Presented in Philadelphia in 2008, on the occasion of the exhibition James Castle: A Retrospective , this documentary tries to shed light on the work of this artist, by examining the two spheres that most shape it. On the one hand, the rural, family-centred setting that he never left, Idaho, and on the other, the art world from which he seemed to be completely disconnected, in which historians, critics and curators discuss the process of assimilation and recognition of Castle as an artist who, moving beyond the fact that he was self-taught, questioned issues related to representation, conceptual practices and even the form of exhibition.

The film is introduced by Ann Percy, curator at Philadelphia Museum of Art and of the exhibition James Castle: A Retrospective (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2008-2009) and Lynne Cooke, the deputy director of Museo Reina Sofía and the curator of the exhibition James Castle: Show and Store (Museo Reina Sofía, 2011).

Both the film and the introduction will be interpreted into Spanish Sign Language and magnetic induction loops will be available.

Technical credits:

Jeffrey Wolf. James Castle: Portrait of an Artist , 2008. Digital Betacam, 53 min. Original Version with Spanish Subtitles. Produced by The Foundation for Self Taught American Artists and Breakaway Films.