Art and Craft: The Great Pretender
Mark Landis, at home showing off recent works
Photo by Sam Cullman
Art and Craft: The Great Pretender
Highly competent in the art of forgery
Co-directed by Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman, Art and Craft is a fascinating documentary about reclusive artist Mark Landis who spends his time replicating famous art works and donating them to museums all over America. For over 30 years, Landis has been duping top curators and registrars with his forged art pieces, including: Picasso, Jose Clemente Orozco, Paul Signac, Jean Antoine Watteau, Stuart Davis and even Walt Disney. With a well-rehearsed spiel and sometimes clad in religious garb, Landis poses as Fr. Arthur Scott, a Jesuit priest, who has recently lost his mother and wants to honor her wishes by donating one of her cherished art pieces to the museum. In other scenarios, he is less elaborate, simply a Philanthropist or a dutiful executor of a family member’s will.
Audiences witness Landis, who suffers from schizophrenia, going to extreme lengths to achieve authenticity such as pouring instant coffee on the back of canvases for an aged look. He sold the dummy to professionals at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, St. Louis University Museum of Art, University of Kentucky Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, among others.
Landis’s shady practices are then uncovered by on-the-ball registrar, Matthew Leininger, who warns the art world about his long list of forgeries. The Cincinnati based Leininger becomes almost obsessed with nabbing Landis, even losing his job. In between stay-at-home daddy duties, he’s hot on his trail.
Landis, fragile with a high voice is forced to confront himself and here’s where it gets really fascinating. He may be eccentric and strange, yet he is undeniably talented and quite harmless as he drives around in a red Cadillac smoking camel cigarettes. Even an FBI agent is reluctant to prosecute because he is not profiting from his endeavors rather, he is “gifting” to unsuspecting art professionals. Meanwhile, Landis potters about his late mother’s residence in Laurel, MS wondering what all the fuss is about. Said Landis, “I just assumed that if later on they (museum curators) determined it wasn’t genuine they would just throw it in the basement. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would be upset or anything.”
In a welcome turn of events, Leininger teams up with the likable Aaron Cowan and the duo decide to co-curate 40 of the forged artworks at The University of Cincinnati. The exhibit entitled “Faux Real” is the ultimate compliment in all the caper surrounding the authenticity of the art! The packed exhibition is attended by curious fans and art students and we find ourselves eagerly awaiting Landis’s arrival. It’s funny and apt when attendees ask him why he doesn’t just work under his own name?
Overall, Art and Craft is very intriguing and well-paced with a great 30’s/40’s big band band/jazz sound track by Stephen Ulrich. At times it alternates between sad and funny. The filmmakers eschew delving too deeply into Landis’s underlying motivations although they work hard at contextualizing mental illness without making him look like a victim. The film actually feels a bit like a portrait. I see a lonely artist trying to cope with life. I see an only child who misses his beloved mother and who has tried hard to impress his difficult father. I also see an addict of sorts, a wanabee actor and a very talented art forger who enjoys what he does and more importantly needs to do it.