Con Artist
A stylishly dark docu-comedy excavating America's craving for fame and fortune via one of its most outrageous addicts. Once a legitimate art star in the 1980s New York scene, millionaire "business artist" Mark Kostabi hires others to conceive and create paintings which he openly signs and sells as his own.
This highly energetic character study focuses on Kostabi's current attempts to regain prominence and find happiness through fame, which he openly equates with love.
Official Selection at the Tribeca Film Festival.
"An entertaining portrait of one of the art world's most outrageous provocateurs" - The New York Times
"An entertaining, occasionally poignant look at America's obsession with celebrity through the career of one eccentric individual." - Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
Running Time
85 mins
Year
2010
Kanopy ID
2591873
Filmmakers
Features
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
Country: Portraits of An American Sound - A Photographic History of Country Music
Embark on a visual odyssey through the history of country music as told by legendary artists and captured by elite photographers over 90 years. From the Carter Family to Taylor Swift, the film chronicles country's rise from regional sound to international phenomenon as seen in the evolving image of the…
Drew: The Man Behind The Poster - Artist Drew Struzan
Drew: The Man Behind The Poster" is a feature-length documentary film highlighting the career of poster artist Drew Struzan, whose most popular works include the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Star Wars movie posters.
Telling the tale through exclusive interviews with George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Michael J. Fox,…
Truth and Art
Truth & Art is a new film and exhibition by the celebrated visual artist - Sunara Begum, exploring the relationship between three global artists/musicians and their work. Through her portraiture, digital tapestry and montage her work brings us into their world and delves deep into their musical and creative practice.…
Just About Famous - Celebrity Impersonators
This film shines a spotlight on the overlooked side of celebrity: the lookalikes. Take a trip into the enlightening and often times surreal life of impersonators as a "star studded" cast lead by Elvis, Obama, Lady Gaga and more embark on a journey to one of the premiere celebrity tribute…
The Secret Life of Lance Letscher - A Portrait of Collage Artist Lance Letscher
A meticulously crafted exploration of Lance Letscher's life and work, which allows audiences an unprecedented look into the mind of one of the contemporary art world's most captivating figures.
Featuring more than one hundred of Letscher's collages, sculptures, and installations, the documentary provides a visual feast while offering intimate access…
The Visual Language of Herbert Matter - The Art and Career of a Modern Artist Pioneer
Herbert Matter designed a series of cutting-edge Swiss travel posters that won international acclaim for the pioneering use of photo-montage combined with type. Always striking a balance between fine art projects and commercial work, the taciturn designer found his own unique language.
He was inspired by Russian constructivists and taught…
Tony Curtis - Driven To Stardom
Trapeze, Spartacus, Sweet Smell of Success, The Boston Strangler, Some Like It Hot. Tony Curtis, the man who influenced Elvis Presley and James Dean, was one of the very first teen idols and one of the last real movie stars. From his difficult upbringing in the Bronx, where he was…
Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back - Profile of a Subversive Artist
An art-world provocateur and elusive artist Maurizio Cattelan made his career on playful and subversive works that up-ended the art establishment, until a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2011 finally solidified his place in the contemporary art canon. Axelrod's equally playful profile leaves no stone unturned in trying to figure…
Breaking and Entering - Fame, Fortune, Usually Neither
Some say that to embrace one's greatest talent is to make the world a better place. Others see a grown man spinning a twelve-foot hula hoop and snicker about trivial obsessions. Breaking world records is a mysteriously seductive tradition, alternately inspiring, reckless, and bizarre. Follow a joggler, a grape catcher,…
Curious Worlds - The Art & Imagination of David Beck
David Beck is one of our most original and accomplished artists, yet outside the insular art world he is relatively unknown. There is an element of surprise and discovery in Beck's work, and a restlessness which insists that nothing is what it seems.
This award-winning documentary illuminates the work of…
Robert Motherwell: Summer of 1971 - The Art and Influence of an American Artist
At work on his Elegies and Windows series, Motherwell examines his place in the Abstract Expressionist movement, which he calls the first original American movement in the "mainstream," and its practitioners "the last romantics." He distinguishes between his large paintings and his intimate papier colle.
Motherwell recollects the state of…
Mirrors to Windows: The Artist as Woman
A unique film following an international cast of three generations of women artists from Cairo, France, Germany, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom who are forging their careers in the London art scene.
The film takes you on an intimate but fast-paced journey, moving the lens between art…