Cory Arcangel: Pro Tools
2014 · 7m · USA
Directed by Kevin P. Alexander
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, humorous
A short documentary in which conceptual artist Cory Arcangel discusses his 2011 solo exhibition Pro Tools at the Whitney Museum of American Art — the largest solo presentation of new work the museum had given an artist of his age — exploring his methods and relationship to artistic tools.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Arcangel's Whitney show was a generational statement — youngest artist to receive an entire floor — and this documentary portrait captures him at the moment of that institutional ratification; for a vault concerned with artists situating themselves within tradition, it is a document of exactly that process.
Artist-doc about a Whitney show. Functional and informative; the reflexive "tools about tools" framing is critic-write-up gloss, not what the film actually is.
A documentary about a conceptual artist whose work is about tools, made with tools. Reflexively clever as object, but it's still essentially a Whitney exhibition behind-the-scenes — six and a half minutes of art-world inside baseball.
Reviews
complex and funny and moving