art

What’s the word for a forger who forges without malice?

Mark Landis is an artist. You’d barely know it to look at him, since to look at him, he seems more like your landlord than he does a creative spirit. Make no mistake though – Landis is tremendously gifted with paint and coloured pencils. He’s also quite gifted at the art of deception, since he is repeatedly able to pass off his own copies of masterpieces as the genuine article. For years he hands them over to galleries and museums, none of them ever suspecting that what they are taking from him is worthless.

He enjoys creating these pieces and never arouses suspicion when he bequests them to be hung alongside priceless works of art. That is ART AND CRAFT.

This subtle documentary comes with a great deal of patience in order to allow us into Landis’ world. We are shown that he has an immense amount of talent, and scratch our heads over why he doesn’t apply that talent towards his own ideas. In his very soft-spoken way, he seems to want us to understand that his own ideas aren’t as interesting. That, and his own work doesn’t get him the same attention that he does when holding what is allegedly someone else’s work.

The film goes one step further and introduces us to a former curator who is now obsessed with pulling back the curtain on Landis and his act. His fascination with Landis and his want to bring him to justice at first seem natural. After a while though, we are left to wonder if he is every bit as obsessed as Landis is. Just as Landis lives for the masters, the curator lives for Landis. It leaves us to wonder who the real master is: the painter or the forger?

The hitch to all of this is that Landis doesn’t do what he does for money. He doesn’t even do it for attention, since he gets so little after his meetings are completed. He does it for the thrill…for the challenge…for “the love of the game”, if you will. While he is guilty of misrepresentation, he is doing it for no gain. It treads lightly, careful not to vilify Landis nor to lionize him. It frames him as being warm, creative, isolated, and quietly passionate. It shows him as a man who has some serious personal issues to work out, none of which pose an actual threat to anyone. He is a criminal who commits no great crime. The crimes he does commit come without ill-intent.

So while ART AND CRAFT begins by making us wonder how a man like Landis could ever do these things, it leaves us sitting on the gallery bench, staring at the work by our lonesome, wondering why he did.

ART AND CRAFT plays at Hot Docs 2014 today, Saturday May 3rd – 4pm at The Bloor. It plays again at The Revue Theatre on Sunday May 4th – 11am (official website)