As an ageing artist, Bill Blaine has come to terms with the fact that he’ll never be the next Picasso. For Blaine, this gradual realisation has been artistically freeing, but, as he discusses in Bill Blaine: A Walk Around the House, it hasn’t made his creative life any less complicated. In the film, the US director Jakub Blank pays a visit to Blaine’s home and studio in Mount Dora, Florida, which is full of his original paintings and photographs. As Blaine offers his unguarded thoughts on a range of topics related to the generative process – including what it takes to be ‘great’, and why he lacks it – Blank intercuts the interview with still images of these pieces, born of decades of work and artistic evolution. The result is a refreshing and disarming portrait, with an artistic resonance of its very own.
Director: Jakub Blank
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Film and visual culture
At the movies with Pauline Kael – in the arthouse cinema where she got her start
19 minutes
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Biology
Journey deep into the Philippine forest in search of the world’s largest, rarest eagle
95 minutes
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Art
What does an AI make of what it sees in a contemporary art museum?
15 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
13 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Producing food while restoring the planet – a glimpse of farming in the future
7 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
Yo-Yo Ma performs a work for cello in the woods, accompanied by a birdsong chorus
4 minutes
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Art
‘Long Live Degenerate Art’ – how a Surrealist group in Cairo defied repression in 1938
4 minutes
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Love and friendship
Skiing blind is a challenge – but it helps to have a loved one to guide you
20 minutes
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Art
A massive art installation attempts to put the COVID-19 deaths in perspective
15 minutes