Overdose on Art With Peggy

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict opens at Living Room Theaters

In the tradition of Grey Gardens, filmmaker and fashion addict Lisa Immordino Vreeland throws viewers into the closeted, batshit world of the woman who imagined London's first modern art museum, slept with Samuel Beckett, commissioned Jackson Pollock's largest-ever work for her front entry, and once had an original Dalí delivered to her in bed. A black sheep of the world's most famous family of curators, Peggy Guggenheim was an oddball—she shaved her eyebrows at school just for the hell of it, chats nonchalantly in interviews about her dozens of abortions and was so notoriously cheap that she served shitty wine and old pasta to Picasso at her art parties. But the film captures her insanity with sympathy (and a budget that's obviously bigger than most arthouse biopics'). Yes, we get black-and-white photos of her childhood with the Ken Burns effect applied and too many stills of Pollock and Picasso. But the stories accompanying this film's footage of 1940s London street scenes and color home movies of Peggy in Venice are so interesting that you could listen to Peggy Guggenheim with eyes closed and still be stunned by it. Audio of Peggy's long-lost, last interviews and talking heads like Clement Greenberg and New York's New Museum curator tell lurid tales of countless Guggenheim heirs killing themselves, sex scandals with the likes of literary critic John Holms, and how Peggy eventually got the last laugh when the Louvre honored her after many rejections. Even the most casual art users could easily be hooked by the story of this enfant terrible.

Not Rated

Critic's Grade: A-

Willamette Week