Het Kunstcircus

New York is seen by many as the world capital of the art of painting. Since the inventors of modern art, European painters, took to the States after World War I, the city has played a decisive role in the art world. From the early 1960s, there has been quite a bit of criticism: New York has been said to be dominated by greedy art dealers and collectors who are too willing to play the game. Without pretending to give a comprehensive account, THE ART MERRY-GO ROUND explores the network of succesvol, failing, aspiring, and written off artists as well as their relations with art collectors, dealers, custodians and critics. The film tries to provide an inside view into the codes of secretive and closed subculture. The New York art world has been called one of the most finely branched micro-economic systems in the world. Recently, it seems to have burst like a soap bubble. People giving their views are art dealers Leo Castelli, Ileana Sonnabend, Jeff Koons, Robert Yarber and Jack Witten, in addition to The Guerrilla Girls, who call themselves 'The conscience of the art world', and the connoisseurs Christian Leigh and Donald Kuspit. THE ART MERRY-GO-ROUND was realized thanks to the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival script prize awarded to Ms. Marijke Jongbloed in 1989.