Series puts a spotlight on rare films

The Bowman Arts Centre has been enjoying exploring the intersection between art and ideas with its winter film series.
   The fourth annual film series features a variety of independent documentaries about contemporary artists, which are screened every Monday at 7 p.m. at the Bowman Arts Centre until March 5. There is no charge to attend.
Art is more than just about artists and their work and ideas, says Darcy Logan, the Bowman’s curator.
“There is an intersection between ideas and artists making something out of them.”
The films combine ideas such as history+art+romanticism, culture+art+politics, and performance+art+spectacle with the artist who incorporates those concepts into their works.
The final films of the series screen Feb. 27 and March 5.
The Feb. 27 film at 7 p.m. is “How Art Catches a Rabbit,” a documentary about the Kunstbroedplaats, an “art breeding place” in the Dutch wetlands of Weerribben. At film at 8 p.m., “Catchment Collective” explores the Australian artist collective of the same name.
The film on March 5 is a profile on pioneering feminist artist Annette Messager. It begins at 7 p.m.
Logan did extensive research into the series’ films and contacted some filmmakers directly.
“I started with a lot of the artists I felt were interesting. I did a lot of research on Google. Sometimes on the 40th page of Google, there would be a film about an artist that I never even knew existed,” he said.
He also chose films which covered as many mediums as possible including painters, performance artists, sculptors and multi-media artists. He watched most of them and narrowed the selections down to a shortlist of 18 films. Eight made the cut to screen. He omitted some of the ones he thought were too sensitive for the audiences.
“I chose the ones I thought illustrated the concepts the best and I saved the ones I really wanted to see for this event.”
He was most excited about the first two films in the series, “Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” about Anselm Kiefer and “Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour,” a portrait of the artist who was imprisoned by the Chinese government for three months.
All of the films in the series go into the Bowman Art Centre’s library.
“Not to toot my own horn, but after four years, I think I have a collection of movies that is the equivalent to most major institutions. Some of them aren’t available anywhere else other than Europe,” he said.
The series has created a lot of public interest, he added, and he’s already looking forward to next year’s event.
“We’ll be in the new building next year, so we may have a best of the past four years’ film festival.”