Product Description

When Teri Horton, a 73-year-old former long-haul truck driver with an eighth grade education bought a painting in a thrift shop for five dollars, she didn't know that it would pit her against the most powerful people in the art community and perhaps forever change the way art is authenticated around the world. Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? is a rollicking adventure that documents a 15-year war with the art world's inner circle, lifts the veil on how art is bought and sold in America and introduces audiences to the funny, profane and utterly unforgettable Teri Horton.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28040 in DVD
• Brand: NEW LINE HOME VIDEO (UNDER WAR
• Released on: 2007-05-01
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 74 minutes

Features

• When Teri Horton, a 73-year-old former long-haul truck driver with an eighth grade education bought a painting in a thrift shop for five dollars, she didn't know that it would pit her against the most powerful people in the art community and perhaps forever change the way art is authenticated around the world. Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? is a rollicking adventure that documents a 15-year

Amazon.com
Ex-60 Minutes producer Harry Moses made Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, a favorite documentary film at festivals in 2006. Like an extended 60 Minutes segment, the film presents all aspects of the drama surrounding San Bernadino resident Teri Horton's ten year crusade to certify that her thrift store art purchase is an authentic Jackson Pollock painting worth $60 million. The story, hilarious because of Horton's vibrant, spitfire personality, and because of the absurd lengths she has gone to prove skeptical Pollock experts wrong, extends into a larger sociological discussion of art historical fraud. Gathering forensic evidence to battle art critics and collectors, Horton's attempt to buck the system, which requires provenance and a paper trail to qualify artwork, seems lame. Early on, for example, she claims that the painting was made in a bar at ski resort Mt. Baldy, where several movie stars were snowed in and forced to make artwork together culminating in Pollock's signing the painting with his penis. Interviewed, she explains why she's declared war on the established, discriminatory "art world." As the plot thickens, the viewer chuckles at its absurdity, but also sympathizes with this clever woman who, if anything, deserves some payment simply for her dedication to the cause. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews

Fair and Real
I am an artist of thirty years and consider myself well-read and aware in regards to artworld issues and painting, my main form of expression. Having grown up with people who became the world's most profound art critics once they got a little alcohol in them and who regularly counseled me that what I was learning in art school was all wrong, I found this DVD quite fun. It was fair to both the experts and the philistines.

I am sure that the experts will seem quite funny to a lot of folks. Yes, it looks weird the way elderly men twist and dance in front of Teri's painting to visually test it for it's possible Pollockness. But, those feelings are ironic in the context of this story. While experts are questioned as to how they know what they know, other experts are touted as being experts, and therefore right. I suppose it is a matter of expert against expert.

This DVD has something for everyone. Beyond its entertainment value, it offers a great lesson in how artworks are authenticated. It also offers an insight into the world of people who decide what we will see in museums, a world that almost none of us has anything to do with. Finally, it's a real kick for those persons who would love to tell off artworld experts once they get a little lit. You get to watch Teri Horton do this with great verve.

Personally, I'm on the side of the artworld experts. But, you can decide for yourself. Whether you laugh more at the experts or Teri, you will get some good chuckles out of this DVD. Watch it! :-)

Really Enjoyed It!
I'm tough to please and this film held my interest all the way through, though I'll bet it's easier to enjoy on DVD (as we did) than in a theater because we found ourselves commenting, sometimes quite emotionally, about what was happening.

Without giving away the conclusion, I'll tell you only this: Teri Horton has some pretty convincing evidence--the kind a Gil Grissom would value. Forensics are changing the art world. Digital vs. Analog. Objective vs. Subjective. Evidence vs. opinion. Of course art experts are bound to disagree, to resist such changes. In the face of mounting evidence those experts find it difficult to change their minds. Their reputations depend upon them being right--the first time.

Would I sell for $2 million or even $9 million? I think maybe I'd have to agree with Teri--so far. If I could fault Ms. Horton in any way, she ought to take her problem as to how much she would actually accept for it, and turn it into a straight business decision--leave the emotion out. Set a minimum reserve, stick to it and auction it off. Make the decision as objective as her evidence.

But that brings me to an important point. I don't give a damn what the EXPERTS say about art. I only care if _I_ like it. And I like Teri's painting well enough to value it around the price she paid for it. It takes a valuer to provide a value. I'll bet if Teri really thought about it she'd agree.

Trucker momma proves the emperor has no clothes!
This film just tickled me; delightfully done with a light touch, it pits a down-to-earth dumpster-diving trucker named Teri Horton against a pretentious boatload of art world snobs, and she proves (in the words of a famous author) that they don't know their scrotums from Kentucky-fried-chicken. The film stands up well as a documentary, covering a lot of ground to interview witnesses who knew Pollock, as well as forensic, art, and legal experts. Bottom line is that the fingerprint and other physical evidence pointing to the authenticity of the painting is just overwhelming; if this were a murder case, there would be more than ample evidence to send someone to the electric chair. The only thing standing between Ms. Horton and $50,000,000 (the estimated value of the painting if it were deemed authentic) is a bunch of arrogant blowholes who can't utter a single coherent or persuasive sentence in support of their position that the painting is a fake. If I ever had any doubts about the credibility of the art world, this certainly settled the issue once and for all. As for Teri, a phenomenally feisty, if complicated and self-destructive woman, she makes one of the most interesting lead characters I've encountered in fact or fiction.