As Don Argott’s documentary The Art of the Steal informs us more than once, Henri Matisse called the Barnes Foundation, Albert C. Barnes suburban Philadelphia shrine to his own hot-shit art collection, “the only sane place to look at art in America.” A proudly one-sided vilification of the collaboration of state and corporate forces in an effort to move Barnes’ collection five miles from a private institution in Lower Merion to a public museum in Philly proper, The Art of the Steal dismisses the possibility that the relationship between common perceptions of sanity and the socio-economic support systems for looking at art may have evolved since Matisse last visited America. It’s a “Little Guys vs. The Big Corporate Bad” story, which spins on the irony that the little guys are feverishly trying to protect a rigid set of regulations spawned from resentment over rejection by “the elites,” while the descendants of said elites are ostensibly using their capitalist prowess to aid The People. And, of course, make a profit on said aid.

A working-class Philadelphian who made a fortune off the sale of a VD vaccine, in the early 1910s Barnes began investing his money in the best works of European modern masters, some of which, over the next couple of decades, the Depression allowed him to pick up for a song. He opened his foundation in 1922, and in 1923 hosted a public exhibition which was panned by the Philadelphia elite. Burnt by their rejection, Barnes subsequently went to great lengths to exclude the art establishment from having access to his work. Refusing to allow the pieces to be lent, moved or sold, he accepted visitors on an application basis, and was known to brush off anyone identifiably elite or powerful with a rejection letter “signed” by Barnes’ dog. Against the institutional limitations and biases of art history, Barnes strongly desired for his collection to remain separate from the art world’s model of canonization and commodification, and accessible to art appreciators with backgrounds like his own.

To that end, he stipulated in his will that when he and his immediate trustees died, control of the collection would go to Lincoln University, then a top college for black men, which by the 90s had fallen on hard times. Seventy years of operating as an obstinate non-profit had not been much kinder to the Barnes Foundation; according to Richard Gately, an ambitious lawyer who became president of the Foundation via the Lincoln relationship, the building housing the collection was in need of a new air conditioning/ventilation system and general renovations (according to a group of former trustees and Barnes associates known as Friends of Barnes, the whole “renovations” tactic is a classic robber baron move and shouldn’t have been trusted, although it’s hard to believe a building wouldn’t need a bit of rehab after 70 years).  Citing a clause in Barnes’ will which specified that its basic stipulations could be violated if necessary to protect the collection, Glanton first arranged to send a selection of Barnes’ paintings on a world tour, and then was instrumental in arranging a legally specious deal that would pay Lincoln to give up their control of the collection, paving the way for a move to a commercial facility.

All of this went down much to the chagrin of the Friends, who provide talking head testimony that serves as the primary source for Argott’s argument. Barnes, in his mouthy misanthropy and rejection of the social spoils of wealth, is a hero to the Friends who, in telling this story and their involvement in it, largely come off as indignant and vaguely hypocritical in their “art for all! But get the rabble off our lawns, please” populism. They certainly have cause to be angry over the fact that Barnes’ will and wishes have been violated in the name of increasing tourism, but by repeatedly referring to the planned move as a “tragedy” on par with The Rape of Europa, the Friends do their cause no favors.
As gratingly one-note as the argument gets, it would have been nice to see such consistency in the film’s craft. Argott vacillates between standard-issue nonfiction filmmaking tropes (time lapse cityscape videography, “this is important stuff!” ambient score) and bold stylistic choices, such as ghostly super8 footage of the collection, and the use of distorted electric guitar to underscore the idea that Barnes was a rebel with particular (and particularly justified) animosity towards the Philadelphia art elite. For a film so dependent on talking heads, it’s worth noting that the talking head interviews are unusually intimate and dishy, with the angriest subjects offering the best material. I particularly liked a dead calm rant from David D’arcy slamming Philadelphia art donor Raymond G. Perelman as “a nasty old man. Spell my name right, and make sure he knows that.”

The Art of the Steal more than makes its case that the transport of Barnes’ art is ethically questionable in that it can only be carried out via the violation of Barnes’ will, but the film fails to persuade that the move will have an appreciably negative impact on the working class art afficianado with whom Barnes felt a kinship. Its primary value is as a spectacle of the impotent anger that capitalism can engender even in those who could arguably be defined as themselves elite. The Art of the Steal embodies a given that Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, in its nostalgia for mid-20th century middle American middle-class mid-range prosperity, misses: in a zero sum game, there has to be a loser.