Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict : Movie Review on Web Wombat Entertainment

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
by Lisa Dib
Even if you have only bare-bones knowledge aboutart history,the name Guggenheim no doubt strikes a chord. The name is most synonymous with the Guggenheim Museum in New York, named after Solomon Guggenheim, and reflects the influence of thisimportantname on art and society of the time.
This documentary follows the life of art collector and socialite Peggy Guggenheim , and her influence and work in the art world in the first half of the 20th century; of course, as a member of a prominent society family, there wasn’t the kind of rags-to-riches stories you might find in other biopics. Indeed, there are little stakes at all. Peggy had some personal tragedies and was also widely considered the black sheep of her family, butshe remained, until her death in 1979, a rich and prominent figure. Not thata storyneeds to have poverty and conflict in order to be interesting, butwhen we are told thatPeggy was poor for a Guggenheim (having inherited $450,000 after her mother’s death, for instance, apparently a paltry sum) it’s hard to truly relate to the lives of the lofty upper-upper class.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict: Movie News and Reviews on Web
Much of the film is built aroundan audio interview between Peggy and her biographer, Jacqueline Bograd Weld. So much of this interview - the last of her life - was Weld asking aboutvarious artists in a vague way (“What was X like?”) and Peggy giving quite short, notterribly in-depth answers (“Lovely, very charming…”); much is made of her love life - her penchant for promiscuity - rather than, for example, how she went aboutbuying all the art she accumulated, or her tense and distantrelationshipwith her mother, or how her sister Hazel’s two children fell off a 13 storey building,many believing thatHazel pushed them. All of this, I feel, is much more interesting than what Samuel Beckett was like in the sack. Sadly, thisview of her as a promiscuous eccentric is also lumped in with an idea of her as being very determined, butsomewhat homely. Indeed, the documentary practically opens with an interviewee saying how Peggy was never going to be a society queen thanks to her unattractiveness. Thanks for the input,bro.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict: Movie News and Reviews on Web
It skims the surface without delving in deeply enough; when Peggy speaks of her first marriage to Laurence Vail, she describes - quite flippantly- the abuse she suffered at his hands,though maintains he didn’t“beat her, really” (something that, sadly, drew a few laughs from the audience); Peggy’s relationshipswith her daughter Pegeen and sonSindbadare weirdly skimmed over, except when Pegeen is a part of a groundbreaking all-female show curated by Peggy, and her suicide at the age of 42 after years of depression; even her father Benjamin’s death - he died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, after helping others to safety, and was even featured in the 1997 film ("We've dressed up in our best and are prepared to go downlike gentlemen”) - which must have had a profound effect on her consideringthe love she strongly proclaimed for him, is only touched on.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict: Movie News and Reviews on Web
There are, obviously,some notably interesting points: Peggy was renowned for being cheap, but - and I would wager thisis connected - she was also incredibly generous to artists of note in her book, funding artists from her own pocket so that they may work in peace, including the now householdname of Jackson Pollock. She was determined to create unique and powerful spaces for art-lovers to enjoy the works she had collected, creating visually interesting and sometimes physically imposinggallery spaces. She had also been integral in rescuing Max Ernst (who she would later go on to marry) and his work from the Nazis in the early 1940s.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict: Movie News and Reviews on Web
There is also the key fact thatshe was a powerful, driven and successful women working in a very male-dominated world, and still attemptingto carve outa professional niche in a time when women were still expected to stick to lunchingand domesticity. She definitely helped to bolster the credibility and popularityof surrealism, abstract art and cubism in her time - she looks back somewhat regretfully at how much the works of art thatshe paid virtually nothingfor (comparatively) are worthnow. It is maintained in the film thatit was always aboutthe art, never the money, thoughmoney does come up quite a bit; is anythingfree from being ‘aboutmoney’?