It’s hard not to imagine that most people (ourselves included) won’t know anything about the Barnes Foundation when going into “The Art of the Steal,” the electrifying new documentary by Don Argott (“Rock School”). The foundation, located in a modest manor in a suburb of Philadelphia, is home to an astounding collection of impressionist, post-impressionist and modern paintings, estimated to be worth more than $6 billion, by Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Goya, and Manet, as well as a small school where students learned to develop their artistic inclinations. After you see “Art of the Steal,” you can’t believe that you’ve never heard of the Barnes Foundation (and it’s truly tortured history).
The founder of the Barnes Foundation, Albert C. Barnes, made a fortune developing an antiseptic, but always remained an outsider and after his collection was publicly ridiculed by stuffy art critics, maintained a “fuck the establishment” attitude that would stay with him until his death and inform everything that’s detailed in this movie. It was after his art critic beat down that he decided that the Barnes Foundation should always be kept away from the Philadelphia art establishment and kept in the hands of the people (art lovers and students).
And after Barnes’ death, it triggered a power struggle of absolutely mind-boggling proportions and intricacies involving key members of the Foundation as well as top politicians, much of which is too complicated and too juicy to give away here. Everyone wanted a piece of the Barnes Foundation because, as the movie points out, the amount of money that a museum can make is truly astronomical (especially when, in addition to oodles of ticket sales you factor in T-shirts, programs, and anything else you can sell at the souvenir stand).
The genius of Argott’s documentary is that it starts out simply enough, as most art documentaries do, explaining Barnes’ before-his-time tastes and setting up the Foundation as a kind of intellectual haven (people like Albert Einstein would just stop by). Things are placid, beautiful even, but not exactly compelling. This is deliberate, as the filmmakers are lulling us into thinking things will be smooth sailing, as if they’re just showing us this amazing place that we’ve never heard of. But as soon as Barnes dies in 1951, and the bare-knuckle brawl for his collection begins, the movie peels back the layers, exposing hypocrites in every possible arena, including the fluffy cuddly personas of non-profit organizations. At one point there’s an actual web on screen that shows you how the Barnes Foundation was mismanaged and its ideals sold out.
Uncannily, the film stays away from being a boringly “political” film with a cut and dried agenda. While it clearly sympathizes with those that want the Barnes Foundation to remain pure (and away from the Philadelphia art world fatcats that Barnes so despised), the romanticism connected with the collection does make you think “Wow, well, maybe more than a few dozen people a day should be able to see this art.”
Combining historical footage of the Foundation with talking head interviews with people that were friends of Barnes, were educated at the Foundation (some of whom ended up producing the film), or have other particular insight into the situation, along with of-the-moment footage of the struggle to keep the Barnes Foundation at the Barnes house and not to a gaudy new museum in downtown Philadelphia. The timeliness of the filming adds a lot to the film, as the filmmakers capture numerous heated protests and rallies, giving the movie a vibrant, you-are-there immediacy that makes the ultimate outcome even more heartbreaking.
But as much as the film makes you think and feel, “Art of the Steal” is a thriller. At 101 minutes it is swift, emotionally compelling, snappy, easy-to-follow and never outstays its welcome. You will be on the edge of your seat the entire time. The sheer complexity of it, with its multiple conspirators aligning themselves with a nefarious end goal in their sights, makes it the “JFK” of art world documentaries. And just like “JFK” it’s less a movie about whodunit as much as a movie about who got away with it and how they pulled it off. [A]
Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen or heard much about this film before.