Downloads: Press Release
Mild-Mannered Eccentric Mark Landis Fooled the Art World for 30 Years Until Being Discovered by a Tenacious, Sleuthing Museum Staffer
Produced in Association with American Documentary | POV
“Perversely satisfying. The art world deserves him.” —Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Mark Landis could be described as a genuine work of art. His Southern accent and genteel manner recall Truman Capote at his grandest. Landis occasionally masquerades as a priest, sips brandy from a Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia bottle and has dedicated much of his life’s work to a nonexistent sister.
He is also one of the preeminent art forgers and con men of our era and the subject of Art and Craft, a captivating, compassionate and often humorous documentary airing on PBS’s POV (Point of View) series as a special presentation on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015 at 10 p.m. (Check local listings.) The film was an Official Selection of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and was named a Top 5 documentary by the National Board of Review. POV is American television’s longest-running independent documentary series and the recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.
Directors Sam Cullman (co-director of the Oscar®-nominated If a Tree Falls) and Jennifer Grausman (Emmy®-nominated Pressure Cooker) and co-director Mark Becker (Independent Spirit-nominated Rom´ntico) tell the story of an enigmatic, vastly talented and sometimes troubled man who, through hard work, perseverance and almost majestic chutzpah, fooled the art world for nearly a third of a century.
Unlike most art forgers, Landis was never in it for the money. He gave away his forgeries. One of his primary motivations, however, was universal: he wanted acceptance and respect. Art and Craft will likely earn him both, and perhaps confer cult status on the mild-mannered 59-year-old.
Born in 1955 in Norfolk, Va., Landis was the only child of a naval officer and beautiful mother. His father’s death triggered a nervous breakdown when Landis was 17, which resulted in an 18-month hospitalization and an early diagnosis of schizophrenia. His mother’s later death (he moved into her Mississippi home after Hurricane Katrina to care for her) deepened the devastation.
But Landis had one thing going for him: a brilliant talent for copying art that began to blossom at around age 8 and would eventually be affirmed by his stunningly successful career as forger and “philanthropist.” Over the course of 30 years, Landis successfully presented his fakes as the original work of Paul Signac, Pablo Picasso and Dr. Seuss, among many others. All told, he has donated hundreds of works over the years to a staggering list of institutions across the United States.
Of course, Landis’s genius was not confined to forgery alone. He was also a formidable con artist, often posing as a Jesuit priest and sometimes presenting identical copies of forgeries to different museums, usually to honor the memory of his deceased parents, or a nonexistent sister. In another delightful touch, he used materials from big-box retailers to create his forgeries. The first scene in Art and Craft shows Landis picking up materials at a Hobby Lobby store; he had a penchant for frames bought at Walmart. He usually drove to museums in a red Cadillac with big-band music playing on the stereo.
Landis also has a sly sense of humor, which is on display throughout the documentary. “Nothing’s original under the sun,” he intones early on, and as if to suggest what he has in mind for the art world’s many experts, the first donation mentioned portrays the crucifixion.
Eventually, however, the art world would attempt to return the favor.
Matthew Leininger, a former registrar at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, became suspicious of Landis and began looking into his history as a donor. Just as Landis fed an obsession for going on “philanthropic sprees” to museums across the nation, Leininger took the con very personally and soon developed his own obsession. “He messed with the wrong registrar,” Leininger says with a slight snarl. Leininger’s pursuit of his nemesis adds a cat-and-mouse element to Art and Craft.
Leininger exposed Landis in 2008, though the story was far from over. Because Landis did not charge for his forgeries, he had not technically committed any crime, and so avoided prosecution and possible incarceration. Exposure also brought fame, though Landis discovered, like countless people before him, that fame is a double-edged sword.
After Landis was found out, he became the subject of stories in The New York Times and the Financial Times, among others, with the FT profile portraying Landis as both a dedicated son and a prankster. He enjoyed his role as a phony priest, especially, he recounts, when people “come up to me at airports and tell me of their problems. There’s not much to being a priest. Some comforting words, that sort of thing. And a blessing.” As for his legacy, he wistfully, and perhaps impishly, notes, “I like people to think of me as an art dealer and philanthropist, but I guess I get to be a dishonorable schoolboy.”
When director Jennifer Grausman saw the first of the stories on Landis and shared it with director Sam Cullman and co-director Mark Becker, the three were hooked. “The piece described a talented art forger who wasn’t motivated by money, but instead donated his work to institutions across the country for nearly three decades,” says Grausman.
Beyond this, Cullman wondered about other possible motivations. “Was Landis a failed artist trying to get back at the art world that had rejected him? Was he a kind of Robin Hood for the arts, with dreams of bringing great works to the masses? Or was he some kind of a performance artist, intent on questioning notions of originality and authorship?”
The filmmakers found a complex man with complex motives, but one who was also driven by a universal desire borne of his unique circumstances. Isolated his whole life by his struggles with mental illness, Mark Landis had forged a 30-year con that “allowed him to regain control and finally be given respect,” Cullman concluded. In his own way, Landis was pursuing happiness and a sense of purpose. And along the way, he created something of a masterpiece, as Art and Craft engagingly chronicles.
Art and Craft is a production of Non Sequitur Productions and Yellow Cake Films in association with Catapult Film Fund, Motto Pictures and Oscilloscope Laboratories. Produced in Association with American Documentary | POV, TVO and Knowledge Network.
About the Filmmakers:
Sam Cullman, Director/Producer/Cinematographer
Sam Cullman is a cinematographer, producer and director of documentaries with well over a decade of experience. He partnered with director Marshall Curry to co-direct, shoot and produce If a Tree Falls, which won the Documentary Editing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary Feature and aired on POV in 2011. More recently, Cullman produced and shot the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning The House I Live In (2012), directed by Eugene Jarecki. Cullman’s cinematography has appeared in dozens of documentaries including King Corn (2007), Why We Fight (2005) and, most recently, Black Cherokee (2012), a documentary short that he also directed, produced and edited with Benjamin Rosen. A graduate of Brown University with honors in visual art and a second major in urban studies, Cullman lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Jennifer Grausman, Director/Producer
Jennifer Grausman directed and produced the Emmy-nominated feature documentary Pressure Cooker (2008), which garnered awards from festivals across the country, including a special jury commendation at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2009 Philadelphia Film Festival. Grausman also co-produced Eric Mendelsohn’s fictional feature 3 Backyards (2009), which won the Best Directing for a Dramatic Film Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Previously, she produced several short films. In addition, Grausman acted as co-director of the Screenwriters Colony in Nantucket, Mass., from 2010 to 2012. Prior to receiving her master of fine arts from the film program at Columbia University, she was the manager of exhibition and film funding at the Museum of Modern Art. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree in art history at Duke University.
Mark Becker, Co-Director/Editor
Mark Becker produced, directed and edited the documentary Rom´ntico (2005), which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and received two Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best Documentary. He directed and edited the Emmy-nominated documentary Pressure Cooker (2008), which won awards at several film festivals before opening theatrically. Becker also produced and edited the documentary Elevate (2011) and edited Circo (2010, Emmy nomination, PBS) as well. He was one of two editors on the acclaimed Lost Boys of Sudan (2003), which premiered on POV in 2004 and won an Independent Spirit Award. Becker earned a master’s degree in documentary film from Stanford University.
Credits:
Directors/ Producers: Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Co-Director/Editor: Mark Becker
Cinematographer: Sam Cullman
Executive Producers: Lisa Kleiner Chanoff, Christopher Clements, Bonni Cohen, Julie Goldman, Carolyn Hepburn, Simon Kilmurry
Co-Executive Producers: Cathy Greenwold, Thomas Campbell Jackson
Composer: Stephen Ulrich
Running time: 86:46
POV Series Credits:
Executive Producers: Chris White, Simon Kilmurry
Associate Producer: Nicole Tsien
Coordinating Producer: Nikki Heyman
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, Inc., POV is public television’s premier showcase for nonfiction films. The series airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on PBS from June to September, with primetime specials during the year. Since 1988, POV has been the home for the world’s boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action. Always an innovator, POV discovers fresh new voices and creates interactive experiences that shine a light on social issues and elevate the art of storytelling. With our documentary broadcasts, original online programming and dynamic community engagement campaigns, we are committed to supporting films that capture the imagination and present diverse perspectives.
POV films have won 32 Emmy® Awards, 18 George Foster Peabody Awards, 12 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards®, the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award and the Prix Italia. The POV series has been honored with a Special News & Documentary Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking, two IDA Awards for Best Continuing Series and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Award for Corporate Commitment to Diversity. More information is available at www.pbs.org/pov.
POV Community Engagement and Education (www.pbs.org/pov/engage)
POV’s Community Engagement and Education team works with educators, community organizations and PBS stations to present more than 650 free screenings every year. In addition, we distribute free discussion guides and standards-aligned lesson plans for each of our films. With our community partners, we inspire dialogue around the most important social issues of our time.
POV Digital (www.pbs.org/pov/)
Since 1994, POV Digital has driven new storytelling initiatives and interactive production for POV. The department created PBS’s first program website and its first web-based documentary (POV’s Borders) and has won major awards, including a Webby Award (and six nominations) and an Online News Association Award. POV Digital continues to explore the future of independent nonfiction media through its digital productions and the POV Hackathon lab, where media makers and technologists collaborate to reinvent storytelling forms. @povdocs on Twitter.
American Documentary, Inc. (www.amdoc.org/)
American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia company dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Bertha Foundation, The Fledgling Fund, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Ettinger Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
Contacts:
POV Communications: 212-989-7425. Alternate contact: 206-790-8697.
Cathy Fisher, cfisher@pov.org; Brian Geldin bgeldin@pov.org
POV online pressroom: www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom
Published by
