Catalina Gutierrez
Documentary Project
My interest springs from cinema that scrutinizes women’s lives by fully capturing their perceptions. After studying the work of various women directors, I became absorbed with their processes and aesthetics. For example, a film like Helke Sander’s Redupers, by focusing on an art show about women and the Berlin Wall, unveils the psychological and physical consequences of the wall. The film resonates with me because it captures women’s subjectivity in relation to their political surroundings. Many new documentary films, such as Eva Hesse, The B-Side, and Everybody Knows Elizabeth Murray, take oppositional stances to comment on intersectional conflicts, thus building a wider forum for women’s stories. The idea for my project emerges from this tradition.
I envision developing short documentaries about female artists who lived in New York during the 70s and created their own visual language and politics through their work. One such artist is Ruth Marten, who started her creative life as an underground tattoo artist. In the 1970s, when tattooing was illegal, her provocative designs conveyed her political views as a feminist and LGBT supporter. As a contemporary illustrator, Ruth is passionate about the surrealist/dada aesthetic. Her creations not only go against most conventional canons and commercial styles, but they are a powerful visual exploration that is always striving for transformation.
Ruth Marten’s photographs, book cover designs during the 90s, and collage.
I’m particularly interested in the connection between past and present in Ruth’s collages. Antique prints and illustration work were part of an important tradition in historical storytelling. Old prints had the power of representation and truthfulness that photography’s indexical quality achieved centuries later. My film pays close attention to the meta-narrative created by a conversation between works from different time periods. In terms of style, the observational camerawork will aim for a subjective experience that registers the artists’ visions and creative processes. Their pictorial work will be explored by an integration of their inner sounds, poetry and visuals. My documentary will also employ short photo essays. My approach is influenced by the intimate and contemplative self-portraits by Vivian Maier, an artist whom I regard as exemplifying this highly personal interior space.
Image on the left, a self-portrait by Vivian Maier next to an illustration by Isabelle Arsenault for the Spiderwoman’s Cloth Lullaby.
Other aspects of my documentary will utilize animation, photomontages and collage. The poetry and simply drawn lines of books like The Little Prince and Spiderwoman’s Cloth Lullaby, grow even deeper through their simplicity. I intend to create a narrative which emphasizes the lightness of a playful visual language. The animations I envision will integrate the graphic and pictorial nature of the artists’ work within the cinematic space.
Producing this documentary is vitally important to me because it recognizes and contextualizes the great work produced by women artists in their own time. It is not my intention to make a biographical film. Rather, it is meant to be a meditation on the impact of female art during the tumult of the 70s and 80s. In the case of Ruth Marten, her work reveals a powerful concern for history and colonization. She establishes a point of reference for women’s battles in politics, just as the subsequent waves of feminism provide the possibility for rupture, critique and transformation.
I see this project as a full-length documentary that combines two or three stories which could be shown as part of a gallery installation about these artists, and also in theaters. I plan to seek out financing through grants, arts organizations and foundations in New York. A Kickstarter campaign is also planned.
Ruth Marten, etching and collage