The Circuit points to the news that a Los Angeles art gallery has mounted a show of the paintings of Adele Lack, the estranged wife of Caden Cotard, whose portrait graces the catalog for the show. Which is interesting, because both Lack and Cotard are fictional characters, played by Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, NY, which not coincidentally opens in New York and LA on Friday.
Even more interesting, a number of art and culture blogs have written up the opening of the show without noting even the connection to the film, never mind the fact that the paintings themselves are movie props and the artist to which they’re credited doesn’t actually exist. One site even includes an image of Keener from the film, without indicating that they’re aware that it’s a publicity still not of an artist, but of a sort-of famous actress playing an artist.
It certainly seems like clever surreptitious marketing for the film — especially for this film, which resists relegraphing its intent or meaning –– but maybe it’s *too* clever? If the show itself is as free of Synecdoche signage as many of the blog posts about it, at what point are patrons of the show (which ends on Sunday) going to make the connection?
I don’t know, but maybe they’re hoping that stories of art critics not realizing that it’s a movie publicity ploy will create the publicity they’re actually looking for. If so, it just worked for me.
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Love it. Blurring the real and the unreal.
Actually, Flux hosted a screening of Synechdoche, NY at the Montalban the same night of the “opening.” They were aware of what they were doing…….
See here…
http://flux.net/cinema-tuesdays-october
the real question is,
who IS the actual artist? these are actually very good paintings (the originals, no way that aesthetic could be done at that scale.) certainly the best i’ve ever seen on film. And it seems near impossible to track down the mysterious talent behind them.
alex kanvevsky did the paintings
I don’t know whether I think that’s cool or unethical.