The movie "Chuck Close", 2008, is a documentary that follows Chuck's 82 days creation process of his self-portrait (the one it the picture above).
Chuck Close is a photorealist american artist. He was born in a small town at Washington State in 1940. Son of a pianist mother and a eletricist father, Chuck talks in the movie about losing his dad at the age of 11 and how his dad's death affected him and helped him to overcome a lot of things.
Chuck gives us a lot of information about his background. He started taking art classes really when he was about 5 years old. But his first contact with the "real art world" was by watching a Jackson Pollock video. Chuck says his reaction to Pollock's artwork was "No way, that is NOT art" and that he felt offended by it but a few days later he caught himself dripping paint all over, like Mister Pollock would do. Ad Reinhard was the artist that most influenced Chuck's artwork.
Out of the northwest scene, Chuck moved to New York and started to do things he'd never done before. His paintings were organic, with latex and colorful.
The documentary is great because Chuck himself walks us through his creation process and his life. We can also hear opnions of other artists like Dorothea Rockburne (minimalist artist) and his family. One once has said: Chuck's art brings the picture to its most perverse version.
In 1988, Close had a seizure. After that episode, he was paralyzed from neck to feet, but didn't stop him from painting. Chuck now paints low resolutions squares (with help of an assistant) that seen by far seems to be an unit.
This fieldtrip really surprised me right from the begining. Never thought we would go to such a cool place in a college class. I've went to a concert on the House of Blues about a year ago and didn't notice how many good artwork they have all over the place. Evrything caught my eyes, and I was impressed with the good quality of this folk artists and happy to see Chicago representing in big style with Mister I.
