PAINTERS PAINTING

A studious film of the kind they don't make any more. In the early 70s, Emile de Antonio interrogated anybody who was anybody in the New York art world - from Robert Rauschenberg to dealer Leo Castelli - on what abstract art means. Everyone is prepared to take De Antonio's questions with total seriousness; a long way from the studied irony you'd expect if you asked the same thing today. As a result, De Antonio has put together a concise study of a postwar period when American painting eclipsed all comers, while helping to establish a chronology and a context for abstraction's evolution - from action painting to colour field, and so on.

-The Guardian
May 29 2009