In the late 1950s, as the post-war rise of Abstract Expressionism became the new wave of painting in the United States, a small but determined band of California painters, curators and collectors exercised impulse over calculation, and in the process created their own scene. Eschewing the trickle-down influence of the New York City set, and battling an apathetic public and L.A. Board of Supervisors who derailed citywide arts fairs under the rationalization of communist infiltration (at one point claiming a painting of a sailboat nefariously concealed a hammer and sickle), these headstrong Left Coasters brought a new and vigorously American slant to contemporary painting, as this lively new documentary details.



Director Morgan Neville has to his name a smattering of excellent serial biography small screen credits, and had a hand as a writer-producer in the excellent tele-doc The Night James Brown Saved Boston, about a Beantown concert following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here, he imbues The Cool School with a style at once engaging and unpretentious. Using the late Walter Hopps, co-owner of the influential Ferus Gallery, as its nexus, the film shows how art of the time came to be informed by the laid-back, anything-goes culture of the Southland, and particularly Venice Beach. Similar in perspective to Stacy Peralta's Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants, which documented the origins and rise of skate and surf culture, respectively, The Cool School is a fascinating, well-packaged and artfully told story of outsiders cracking the mainstream. Jeff Bridges provides the narration, and interviewees include critic Peter Plagens and dozens of notable artists, as well as scenester benefactors Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper. (Arthouse Films, unrated, 86 minutes)

        

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion