There are many wonderful documentary films about art, for example, The Secret of Picasso (1956), Tim Vermeer (2013), Van Gogh. With love, Vincent (2017) and many others. In this post, I decided to focus on the movies and videos available on YouTube that I liked the most recently. Marina Abramovich: In the presence of the artist (2012) The performance became her life, Marina Abramovich calls herself the “grandmother of performance”, because when she and her lover Ulai began to do performances, there was no such formal direction in art, people generally did not understand what she was doing and why. Marina Abramovich did and is doing amazing things, then she closes herself in a transparent cage and masturbates in front of everyone in the museum, then she sits for 12 hours on a chair and looks into the eyes of anyone who sits close to her. What is performance now many people already understand that Pavlensky is known in Russia, who also does a kind of performance. Film “Marina Abramovic: The Artist is present” talks about the life of an artist who should not love another artist.

Andy Warhol – Finished Picture (2002) Outrageous artist who was born in the village and became one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century won the hearts of people with paintings with a can of tomato soup and colorful prints of celebrities. Andy Warhol built his factory of mass art accessible to many, was an artist, illustrator and just a very famous person around the world. The Andy Warhol – The Complete Picture film shows his whole life from a timid boy who was beaten by girls at school, to a pop star and an incredibly commercially successful artist. This is a section of an era when people admired the shocking Dali, and were also crazy about the eccentric Andy. 

Pictures of artists (1973) The documentary Painters Painting shows how the famous artists of the 20th century lived and worked: Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Larry Puns, Robert Rauschenberg and others. You can see how the artists’ workshops looked, what materials they used, how they created their canvases. The film has interviews with artists, filming of the drawing process, impressions of acquaintances and colleagues of artists about their personalities. The film shows not only the created “scenic” image of artists, but also their usual everyday life, thoughts and concerns. 

Peter Doig – Interview (2014) Not quite a documentary, but still a very good historical footage. This is an interview with one of my favorite contemporary artists, Peter Doig, in which he talks in detail about his paintings, technique, life.