MARC QUINN – MAKING WAVES
Director/Producer: Gerry Fox UK 2014, Foxy Films; 84 minutes
MARC QUINN – MAKING WAVES is a fascinating documentary about a year in the life of one of the UK’s most interesting, celebrated, and controversial artists, MARC QUINN. Shot by Quinn’s long time friend and collaborator, the BAFTA and Grierson documentary award winning director GERRY FOX, (who made the critically acclaimed South Bank Show about Marc Quinn in 2000) Making Waves delves into the very nature of creativity, art, inspiration, fame and, following its selection in the 2014 London Film Festival, celebrates its 2015 theatrical release with the following screenings and Q&As with Quinn and Fox:
July 16th London, Bertha DocHouse, Bloomsbury at 7.30pm
July 17th London, White Cube, Bermondsey
July 20th Hackney Picturehouse at 6.45pm
July 21st London ICA at 8.50pm
July 22nd London, East Dulwich Picturehouse 8.40pm
July 23rd Cambridge Picturehouse at 6.45pm
July 25th Manchester, HOME at 4.10pm
July 26th London, Gate, Notting Hill
August 19th Liverpool, FACT
Filmed all over the world, Making Waves takes the viewer on a roller coaster ride of Quinn’s hectic life as he travels from openings and exhibitions of his work to studios and workshops where he conceives and creates his work. The viewer becomes a fly on the wall as he attends the unveiling of his hypnotic giant bronze seashells – The Archaeology of Art – in New York; in Venice where he oversees the reworking of his famous Alison Lapper sculpture (that graced the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and opened the London 2012 Paralympics) and in Hong Kong and Istanbul where his work, including the notorious ‘Self’ (a model of Quinn’s head made of his own blood) is exhibited to a delighted audience of collectors and fans. We follow Marc to London and the showing of his giant bronze orchid at the 2013 Chelsea Flower Show and to his new 2015 show at the White Cube, Bermondsey.
“Making Waves is fascinating…Quinn himself is a likeable character, an amiable, laconic presence who nonetheless is a highly driven artist. There’s a temptation, in the middle of the art gallery madness on display, to view his work through the commercial prism of the market place, but Quinn proves himself to be a more substantial figure than that.”
(Screen Daily)
“Marc Quinn is one of the biggest and most influential names in the modern art panorama…in Marc Quinn Making Waves we see the artist at work and a lot of the things that inspire him – which is just about everything…Gerry Fox is a fly on the wall that squeezes through the crack and delivers a rewarding, down to earth representation of the passively mad world surrounding his subject…” (CineCola)
“This is a documentary that pays as much tribute to the works of themselves as to the artist himself…the audience is treated to close-ups of each individual piece…this is a fascinating and wonderful tribute to an artist who is constantly in demand.”
(Artswrap)
Gerry Fox’s entertaining footage includes a fascinating visit to the creative teams weaving tapestries of Marc’s work and refining his sculptures to his precise vision. The film also has a keen eye for the absurdities of the art world, which Quinn treats with a zen parity, whether it’s hanging with Lionel Richie, meeting the Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei in Beijng, showing Elton John around his Venice exhibition, casting for models at a tattoo convention or meeting the Queen. Fox has a delightful rapport with his subject and this intimacy, coupled with an on-the-fly filmmaking style, enables the audience to be present for the genesis of ideas that will later become thrilling artworks.
Says Fox (left): “Making a film with someone who is both a friend and an artist with whom I have collaborated before was never going to be simple but that level of trust allowed me a privileged and unique access to Marc Quinn’s hectic life combined with an ability to tease him and question him throughout the year we spent together. Hopefully the film gives a real insight into what it takes to be a commercially successful artist today…and boy it ain’t easy!”
The release of Making Waves coincides with Marc Quinn’s major new show, TOXIC SUBLIME, at the White Cube, Bermondsey, July 15th – September 15th.
MARC QUINN – MAKING WAVES is distributed worldwide by Starline Entertainment.
Left to right: Marc Quinn with ‘Zombie Girl’; ‘The Archaeology of Art’; Marc Quinn with ‘Alison Lapper’
MARC QUINN – MAKING WAVES screened last year as an official selection at the 2014 BFI London Film Festival to great acclaim. My review of the film can be found here.
