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A portrait of Kostabi in the documentary Con Artist

Andris Feldmanis (1-2/2011)

  

Andris Feldmanis teaches us how to distinguish Kalev Mark Kostabi from the artist’s media image.

  

 
There is a scene in Michael Sládek’s film Con Artist (2009), where Kalev Mark Kostabi, the 50 year old American artist with Estonian roots, rolls himself ecstatically around his flat and eventually sets two 500-euro banknotes on fire, grinning ominously as he does so. A few moments later he becomes serious again and from outside the frame asks the director whether the idea of the crazy artist was portrayed well enough. Sládek’s film is a fascinating and witty play between the director and his subject. The documentary focuses on Mark Kostabi’s life and success story, providing an overview of his childhood and youth, artistic development and move to New York, and the fame he has sought and attained. It also talks about East Village, money and the loss of it in the early 1990s after the end of the stock market and art market boom, the artist’s comeback in Europe in the middle of the decade, as well as his life as the host of a TV show.
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