By Tessa Solomon
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Jackson Pollock’s Mural is on a journey.
From Iowa to Venice, from idea to icon,
the painting’s path is celebrated in the documentary, Jackson Pollock’s Mural: The Story of a Modern Masterpiece. The film will be publicly screened for the first time at 5 p.m. Friday at FilmScene, 118 E. College St., as part of the University of Iowa Museum of Art’s First Friday Series.
Filmed and edited over one year by UI’s Office of Strategic Communication’s Kevin Kelley, Kirk Murray, and Dana Telsrow, the film is both homage to and a history of Mural.
“The purpose of the film is to tell Mural’s story; it’s not the Jackson Pollock movie,” producer, director, and editor Kelley said. “I wanted to focus on the art he created, the reactions to it and its history, so people would know what they have here in Iowa.”
Peggy Guggenheim, who commissioned Mural, donated the abstract painting to UI in 1951. It was shuffled between locations until the Museum of Art opened in 1969.
It was museum’s centerpiece work until the 2008 flood destroyed the facility. Now, the 8-by-20 foot painting is in Venice as part of the traveling exhibition Jackson Pollock’s Mural: Energy Made Visible. It will run until September 2016, but the painting will tour until the new UI museum is completed sometime over the next few years.
Hearing of its imminent voyage, Kelley pitched the idea of a documentary to Strategic Communication administrators. Enthusiasm was universal, and with Murray acting as director of photography, the department-sponsored film began in April 2014.
Filmed in New York, Venice, and California’s J. Paul Getty Museum, whose Conservation Institute restored Mural over two years’ time, the breadth of people and culture this painting has affected is palpable.
“It was a massive undertaking,” said Elizabeth Wallace, the PR and event coordinator for the Museum of Art. “A lot of people contributed time, energy, and thought into the making of this movie.”
Wallace organized the screening, which will kick off the museum’s 2015-16 FirstFriday series. The event will run from 5-7 p.m., with the screening at 5:30 p.m.
“To appreciate the sheer size of the Mural, you need to see this on the big screen,” Kelley said. “It is the only way to experience this film.”
Free tickets can be picked up at FilmScene’s box office one hour before the event. In the reception afterwards, viewers can mingle in the lobby with the filmmakers and museum staff.
“When the chance came up to screen their film on such a central piece to [the museum’s] art collection as the Pollock Mural, we were excited to host and see where the piece has traveled following the flood,” said Joe Tiefenthaler, the FilmScene executive director.
The theater has limited seating, so the Office of Strategic Communication is planning another community screening. It may also be broadcast on Iowa Public Television in the near future, said Director of Video Services Ben Hill.
“People will want another chance to see this movie,” Wallace said. “There are people who have strong memories of seeing it in the old museum. People have composed music inspired by it, gotten married in front of it, and are very personally connected to Mural.”
FILM
Jackson Pollock’s Mural: The Story of a Modern Masterpiece
When: 5:30 p.m. Friday
Where: FilmScene, 118 E. College
Admission: Free
