Film Review: PAT STEIR
© Rockypoint Productions
PAT STEIR: ARTIST (2020) DIR. VERONICA GONZALEZ PEÑA
Text by Belle McIntyre
We are experiencing seismic shifts influencing our priorities at this particular time. One of the welcome changes that I am noticing is attention being given to women as documentary subjects, in particular, women artists. These stories inevitably involve overcoming the usual obstacles in a life dedicated to following one’s muse. For female artists there is the additional hurdle of overcoming the obstacles of gender in a male-dominated industry, which gives these stories an additional layer of struggle and complexity. Pat Steir: Artist reveals a portrait of an intrepid and strong-willed woman with a powerful belief in the importance of art in the world and the value of her vision. She has created a unique place for herself in the flow of artistic movements evolving during her long career, continuing to make art even past the age of 80.
The film was made over three years by Gonzalez Peña, a novelist and filmmaker who shot Steir speaking directly into the camera as if we are on the other side of an actual conversation. She is funny, candid, witty and wise as she relates painful stories about her childhood and her problematic relationship with her difficult parents.
© Rockypoint Productions
She talks at great length about the influence and rapport that she shared with John Cage, one of the giants of avant-garde music. He believed in the theory of indeterminacy in music, whereby the unintended element has equal value as the intended elements. Steir has always embraced that concept as part of her artistic process as well.
There is a fantastic segment of a split screen with a John Cage performance of sounds made by using common household equipment. On the other side is Pat Steir flinging paint at a canvas. Cage calls it “choreographing chance”. It is priceless.
© Rockypoint Productions
There are loads of archival photos and footage from her family albums and early years in New York City, which focus on her work in publishing and feminist activism. In the 1970’s she started an art publishing company called Printed Matter financed by fellow artist Sol Lewitt, her paramour at the time. Theirs seems to have been a tumultuous relationship. They only printed around 10 artists’ books until it became too expensive and was handed over to Ingrid Sischy to be turned into a non-profit enterprise.
Pat was very much in the epicenter of the New York artistic scene and her work was bringing her attention and it sold well. Her “waterfall” paintings have become her best-known works and one can see the endless possibilities and permutations to which the concept can be applied, and each one seems to be a unique and personal interpretation which creates its own response from the viewer. The softness of her voice and the thoughtful cadences of her words accompanied by the music of John Cage serves as the background for the mesmerizing visuals of her process as she applies the paint and then lets it take its own course down the canvas. It feels like a meditation. And for her, that’s what it is. Her art is her religion. It is very inspiring and fascinating.
Watch the trailer here.
