Watch Art and Craft For Free

Absolutely brilliant

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I just seen this documentary an hour ago on the Sky Arts Channel and I have to say this is kinda the weirdest art documentary I've ever watched. The skinny guy Mark Landis looks so zoned and depressed looking that poor fella looks like a 70 year old for a 60 year old. I suppose, when he was caught by donating the art of the artists he copied by giving them to museums, it probably has shaken him a lot. I say if he didn't have to be doing that, he would've been one of the best artists out there. He is, but he just seems to be somewhere else because of what happened effected him. I'm sure he has his own talents of course, everyone does! It just seems that the whole "forging" event took a toll on him. I have to say, this documentary was interesting at the same time because I have never heard of Landis before and like, I wasn't aware of what happened back in 2007. I wonder if hes still doing art right now or has given up completely after making this documentary?

Art and Craft is an excellent documentary film. In a similar approach sometimes used by Errol Morris, the the filmmakers simply get out of the way and let the main character and other real participants tell the story. There is no expert analysis or moralizing.Mark copies artworks and then donates the forgeries to various museums, passing them off as the originals. He truly believes he is doing nothing wrong or illegal.The story is a somewhat sad one. Mark has talent, but he never has had the guidance to help him reach his potential. Mark also has good social skills. He is polite and sells his product convincingly. He has some mental health issues, but most of his treatment seems to have been medication.Mark's belief that he is doing nothing wrong is interesting. While no one seems to condone his actions, no one seems willing to deeply condemn him either. His actions aren't extremely vicious or hurtful, but there is a violation against society taking place. the violation itself is provocative, and causes people to examine the relationship between art and the viewer. That kind of discussion is often said to be one of the purposes of art.Though the story is somewhat sad, there is something redemptive as well. When Mark is given the opportunity to exhibit the forgeries he agrees to participate, and things go well.Another interesting character in the movie is Matthew, who is a museum curator duped by Mark. At first his is extremely angry at the deception. He becomes somewhat obsessed with Mark and works on his own time to locate and expose as many of Mark's donated forgeries as he can. Ultimately Matthew is able to turn the experience into something positive. Instead of being vengeful, he sees it as a learning experience. The face-to-face interaction between him and Mark is amusing rather than painful to watch.Did Mark really hurt anyone - or only their pride? Do the forgeries succeed as art on some level? When we look at a Monet or Picasso do we see the work or do we see a work by Monet or Picasso? If so, is that perception as false as Mark's forgeries?

This documentary is both weird and remarkable at the same time, and I found myself truly fascinated from beginning to end.It focuses on the art copier, or art "forger" as some would call him, Mark Landis, who was living in Laurel, Mississippi at the time of the filming. Since Landis was a child, he's had this amazing ability to copy famous art works, with materials he purchases mainly from local businesses.He's so prolific and expert in this that he has gifted over 100 pieces of art, over a 30 year span to 46 museums in 20 U.S. states. Using the ruse that a member of his family had passed away and thus he wanted to donate from their estate these "valuable" art pieces for display in their museums. Without doing their due diligence, most of these museums gladly accepted his gifts and proudly hung them in their galleries.When he was 17-years-old Landis suffered a nervous breakdown, after his father died. Ever since, he's been diagnosed with serious mental health issues, and you see him going to a mental health clinic several times in the film. However, as long as he stays on his meds and is not a danger to himself or others, he can function in society.The former Chief Registrar at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Matthew Leininger, is also prominently featured in the documentary. He became aware of what Landis was perpetuating and even though he hasn't been with the museum for quite awhile, he remains quite obsessed to expose Landis, because he feels it's not right and is a fraud. However, the former founder of the FBI Art Crime team, Robert K. Wittman, says in the movie that he doesn't consider what Landis is doing a crime, because he's not receiving any compensation for his "gifts". By the time, Landis meets Leininger, towards the end of the film, I just found myself emotionally rooting for Landis.In summary, I found this documentary to be highly unique and felt it was presented in such a way that I was riveted throughout and wondering how it would all turn out.

So, this guy goes to this museum and says that he wishes to donate a painting by a well-regarded, if minor artist in memory of a dead loved one. Later on, it turns out he has done this hundreds of times over the decades and it wasn't noticed for twenty or thirty years. He donates the works. He doesn't even take a tax deduction. The forgeries are fairly crude, often photocopies with some extra paint poured over them.Is it a practical joke? Performance art? An indictment of the so-called experts at museums? Whatever it is, that's what Mark A. Landis has been doing for several decades and when two museum guys realized this, they were angry. Unfortunately, they can't do a thing about it, because Mr. Landis did nothing illegal. They do call him various forms of crazy.I do that too when someone pulls some hoax off on me. It serves me right to fall for it.That's what this documentary is about and it never answers the question "why?" Probably because the answer would embarrass people.