Have you ever stood in an art gallery, contemplating the void and wondering if it was art or if the staff just forgot to place it away? I like this sense. In my opinion, art should make us re-evaluate the whole lot we predict we all know concerning the world. However, it highlights how complex and capricious assessing art will be – a problem also addressed by the “Art Talent Show”.
Directed by: Tomasz Bojar and Adela Komrzy, “Art talent show” (opening in theaters this week) features hopeful candidates for the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest art school in the Czech Republic. When the film appeared on festivals, it was compared to the films of Frederick Wiseman: patient, witty, observational portraits of institutions that encourage viewers to draw conclusions about their ultimate theses. In this case, the heroes are young artists who undergo grueling entrance exams. This includes being heckled by lecturers who sometimes seem to want to mess around with them a bit, whether it’s getting a student to say that smoking can be good for the environment because it kills people, or questioning their views on art market.
Teachers are not rigid traditionalists, but they belong to a different generation than the students. This means that conversations about gender and sexuality, as well as commodification and what is truly provocative, are part of the film. However, the film cleverly located the entire process within a larger institution, with the receptionist in the lobby providing a turbulent counterbalance to all the artistic work.
The Art Talent Show itself is provocative but also entertaining, serving as both a message and a tribute to the complexity of contemporary art. It reminded me of another favorite documentary: “The Competition” by Claire Simon (2016, streaming in Metrograph at home), which follows the fate of future filmmakers who want to get into the prestigious Parisian school La Fémis. They also meet with panels of lecturers, questioning them about their views and aspirations, and the results are equally revealing.
I must admit that both of these films made me very happy that I had already finished school. But what I loved most was how they highlighted complex attitudes about the relationship between identity, craft, and art, even in highly progressive contexts – and how fun it was to watch them do it.
