The mission of the festival is to showcase artists, designers, craftspeople, collectors, curators and makers from around the world while entertaining, educating, and reflecting on the influence art and design have on community, history, politics, personal expression and our contemporary landscape.
In its second year, the Art & Design Film festival has expanded to include venues in both Providence & Newport Rhode Island. All films in Providence are showing at the CABLE CAR CINEMA unless otherwise noted. Regular admission is $10 per screening time, students and seniors $9. Opening night reception and film admission is $30.
The Happy Film follows famed graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister who has designed graphics for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stone and the Guggenheim Museum, as he undergoes a series of self inflicted experiments to test once and for all if it’s possible for a person to have a meaningful impact on their own happiness. Sagmeister follows a strict regimen of meditation, traditional therapy, and anti-depressants, encountering joy, ecstasy, heartbreak, change, love, and death along the way. Throughout his first film, Sagmeister uses his signature whimsical and untraditional graphic design methods and materials to accent his quest for peace and harmony.
Film screening Q&A to follow with Director Ben Nabors and John Caserta, Head of RISD Graphic Design.
Ben Nabors Co-Director & Producer—
Ben is a New York-based filmmaker. His debut feature documentary William and the Windmill, about windmill inventor William Kamkwamba, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival. He co-wrote and produced the short film Palimpsest, which premiered and won a special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). In 2015, he wrote and produced Actor Seeks Role, starring Alex Karpovsky and Dylan Baker, which won the Grand Jury Prize at IFFBoston and had its online premiere with The New Yorker. Filmmaker Magazine named Ben amongst the 25 New Faces of Independent Film, and GOOD Magazine recognized him as a GOOD 100.
John Caserta
A Providence-based designer and educator, John is an Associate Professor and the Department Head of the Graphic Design Department at The Rhode Island School of Design. He received an MFA from Yale University in 2004 and a BA in Journalism from The University of North Carolina in 1995. As an information designer, he has produced graphics and data-driven applications for The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Reuters, The Normandy Visitor’s Center in France, NBC, the NCAA and more. John’s current focus is organizational systems: the design of productive, creative and healthy environments. In 2007, he founded The Design Office, a work space for designers in Providence. The D.O. runs a post-graduate fellowship program and a series of public events and workshops.
This Award winning film follows the story of famed Mexican photo-journalist Enrique Metinides who spent his life documenting tragedies for Mexican newspapers. Witnessing thousands of car crashes, earthquakes, gas explosions, wrecks, murders, derailments and heartbreak, Metinides was able to translate the personal sorrows of his subjects while creating moving artworks that have gained international acclaim.
Q&A following the film. TBA
Long time editor and collaborator Laura Isreal, follows the influential career of photographer Robert Frank. A soundtrack of Charlie Mingus, The Velvet Underground, and Yo La Tengo, sets the tone for this roller coaster ride of fast paced images documenting Frank's journey from the Beats to the Dawning of Punk Music.
Q&A with Brian Ulrich following the film.
Brian Ulrich’s photographs examining consumer culture have been exhibited at the George Eastman Museum; the Cleveland Museum of Art; MCA Chicago; MCA San Diego; the North Carolina Museum of Art; as well as in group exhibitions at the Walker Art Center; and The Art Institute of Chicago. He is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. The Aperture Foundation published his monograph “Is This Place Great or What” in 2011. In 2013 the Anderson Gallery published the catalog “Closeout: Retail, Relics and Ephemera”. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design.
NETWORKS SHORT: Bunny Harvey • Richard Goulis • 2012
through focused, skilled inquiry as the basis for creative practice. The range of work produced begins as investigation of material and often extends to the immaterial; incorporating everything from light and optics, to the cinematic and performative. This is on of two series of experimental short films that celebrate this tradition, including work by a selection of Glass Alumni. - This program is free / No tickets are necessary for addmitance.
Curated by Rachel Berwick & Jocelyn Prince
Q&A with Shari Wills following the shorts program.
An artist whose work is based in film, video performance and installation, Sheri Wills is a Professor and the Dean of Fine Arts at RISD. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including one-person shows at the Director’s Lounge in Berlin, the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema in NYC and the International Experimental Cinema Exposition. Her work is included in the Rizzoli book Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound, by Matt Woolman
Rachel Berwick
Rachel Berwick’s work has been shown internationally in such venues as the Serpentine Gallery in London, the 26th Bienal de Sao Paolo, the seventh International Istanbul Bienal and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. In the US she has exhibited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Mass MoCA, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, among others. She has received numerous grants including fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, a Smithsonian Artists’ Research Fellowship and The Robert Rauschenberg Residency.Berwick received her MFA from Yale School of Art and her BFA from RISD. She was a member of the faculty at the Yale School of Art Sculpture Department from 1991–99 and has since taught at RISD, where she is head of the Glass department.
Jocelyne Prince
is an artist working with the material and the conceptual properties of glass. Prince earned a B.F.A. from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. She exhibits her work in museums and alternative galleries and venues across North America, Asia and Europe. Prince is a full-time member of the faculty in Rhode IslandSchool of Design’s Glass Department.
Performance artist Chris Burden was responsible for some of the most shocking works of art in the 20th century. He folded himself into a school locker for 5 days, crucified himself on a VW Bug, was thrown down a flight of stairs and had himself shot. "I had an intuitive sense that being shot is as American as apple pie. We see people being shot on TV, we read about it in the newspaper. Everybody has wondered what it's like. So I did it." During the 1970's Artists like Burden were concerned with art based on ideas and action rather than objects created for an elite art market. This documentary follows Burdens career as he transitioned from a boundary pushing conceptual artist to a reclusive artist, making a living from public art commissions.
Q&A with Richard Goulis following the film.
Richard Goulis is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in film and video production. From 2008 - 2016 he created a series of video portraits for NetWorks Rhode Island, a project showcasing the work of many of Rhode Island’s most beloved visual artists. He has created over 100 video portraits for NetWorks, which are premiered each year at RISD and shown regularly on RI Public Television. Goulis’s other video documentary work has been shown at many festivals and is part of the permanent collections of The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and other museums in the US. He is a producer and director of Art Rhode Island, a program on Rhode Island PBS which discusses issues facing local artists and showcasing various artworks from around the state. His own artistic practice includes performance art, installation, sculpture, painting and video. He founded two art centers, The Worcester Artist Group in Worcester, MA, and The Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, NM. He is currently embarking on a documentary project about AS220, the art center in Providence, RI. He lives in Olneyville with his wife and two children. http://www.rgoulis.com
NETWORKS SHORT: William Schaff • Richard Goulis • 2009
German American Eva Hesse is regarded as one of the most influential artists who paved the way for the post-minimalist art movement of the 1960's. This personal and moving documentary highlights Hesse's vibrant short life and lasting legacy.
Q&A About the work of Eva Hesse following the film with Monica Shinn
"I began painting in 1988. I also make things."
NETWORKS SHORT: Esther Solondz • Richard Goulis • 2011
Q & A with the artist Esther Solondz following the film.
"Mark Lombardi: Death-Defying Acts of Art and Conspiracy" investigates an artist whose works transformed contemporary power structures into visual art and whose death left many questions regarding this system's intentions and breadth. Lombardi created graphic artwork portraying the opaque global network of financial and political elites, including their ties to international terrorism. His masterpiece - "BCCI" - was investigated by the FBI after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. By that time, however, the artist was dead from an apparent suicide one year earlier, just as his career was reaching new heights.
Meet the artists who are redefining the tradition of knitting and crochet. Yarn graffiti, soft sculptures and performance art bring yarn out of its traditional past into the 21st century art world.
Q&A following the film. TBA
Experience the heart of a contemporary housing development in Denmark, considered to be a new model of success for community living. The "8" house, built by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, was voted best residential building of the year by the World Architecture Festival in 2011.
Q&A with Heinrich Hermann
Hermann is an adjunct faculty in the RISD Interior Architecture Department and has held term appointments as associate professor. In collaboration with Liliane Wong and Markus Berger he co-founded the Int|AR Journal which he co-edited the first two volumes and continues to serve as head of its international advisory board. Before opening his own design studio in Concord, MA, in 2002, he practiced in his native Austria, in Germany, and later as designer and senior designer with large and small firms in Boston. He worked on a wide range of projects from residential, cultural/civic, and academic buildings, to mixed use facilities, including the Ritz Carleton on the Boston Commons Complex.
Hermann earned advanced degrees from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Mag Arch ’79), Cornell (M Arch ‘82), and Harvard (PhD ’95), with a dissertation on the poetic/spiritual in 20th-C architecture, which is still a focus of his research and practice. As a teacher he continues to actively explore pedagogical strategies aimed at helping students unlock their unique creative potentials.
In addition to RISD, he has taught at Montana State, Virginia Tech, Washington University in St. Louis, Roger Williams University, Northeastern University, and Harvard University, and has also directed four graduate summer studios for RISD at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. From 2012-15 Hermann served as chair and professor of the architecture and design department at the SUNY College of Technology at Alfred (Alfred State), where he implemented their new BArch program.
Follow an Indigenous weaver in the highlands of Peru as she shares her seven-day process of making a scarf. From shearing to dyeing, weaving to pricing, Awana is a poignant portrait of a hard working woman and mother, and the beautiful craft she creates.
This film is shown with "Handmade with love from France". Ticket purchased includes both films.
Handmade with Love in France
Julie Georgia Bernard • France • 2014 • 70min
Bernard's film is a beautiful tribute to the artisans that supply hand made finery to the famous Couture houses in France. The film follows three Paris studios, their history and craftsmanship, while questioning their viability in a marketplace that has devoured most of these generations-old family businesses.
Q&A with Lorraine Howes following the film.
Lorraine Howes was educated in South Africa and began her career with Adam Leslie, Johannesburg, and Jonathan Logan, South Africa. In London she worked for Norman Hartnell, England’s leading couturier and designer to the Queen and other major houses. Howes came to the U.S. in 1957, designed an exclusive line for Design Research, Cambridge. In 1960 she opened her own business in Boston. Her clients included Bonwit Teller and Filene’s FrenchShop Boston, and Leron and Bendel’s New York as well as private Couture Clients. She began teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1972 where she went on to serve as Head of Apparel Design Department from 1976 –1999 and as Interim Dean of Architecture and Design in 2000. She has taught design, drafting and construction and history of dress using the museum’s collections. Currently Howes is Professor Emerita. She teaches history of Dress at the RISD Museum, advises graduate students in the textile program and serves as critic for Apparel Design and Textile Departments. Howes has received many awards for her contribution to RISD including Alumni Association Faculty member 1985, Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching 1993, Alumni Association Honorary Award 1995, Helen Rowe Metcalf Award for Excellence in the Arts 2003.TBA
A pioneering abstract painter in the 1940's and '50's , Carmen Hererra is one of the oldest working artists today. Approaching her 100th birthday, Herrera finally experiences the recognition that has eluded her for most of her career.
Q & A with Director Alison Klayman following the film.
New York Times chief film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis named Alison Klayman one of their “20 Directors to Watch” on a list of rising international filmmaking talents under 40. Her debut feature documentary, AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, was shortlisted for an Academy Award, nominated for two Emmys, and earned Klayman a DGA Award nomination. It won the Special Jury Prize at its Sundance Film Festival world premiere in 2012, followed by an international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. The film was picked up by IFC in the US and released theatrically in over 20 countries. Her new short about the Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, THE 100 YEARS SHOW, is a multiple festival winner for “Best Documentary Short."
The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano
Joshua Seftel • USA • 2015 • 26 min
With the help of DNA tests, fortune tellers, and a prosthetic makeup artist, photographer Phil Toledano hauntingly stages and photographs the many dark possibilities that he imagines that may await him in his future.
Q & A with Director Joshua Seftel following the film.
At 22, Joshua Seftel received his first Emmy nomination for his documentary film Lost and Found (1991) about the plight of Romania’s 120,000 orphaned and abandoned children. Seftel’s subsequent films include Old Warrior (1994), Taking on the Kennedys (1996) chosen by Time Magazine as one the ten “Best of the Year,” and the HBO film Ennis’ Gift (2001), made in memory of Bill Cosby’s late son, Ennis. His work has also appeared on Ira Glass’ This American Life program, both on public radio and on Showtime. Seftel’s award-winning narrative film debut was the sharp, satirical short Breaking the Mold (2003), satire, War, Inc., starring John Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, Hilary Duff, and Joan Cusack, was selected to premiere at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
NETWORKS SHORTS: Malcolm Grear • Richard Goulis • 2010
Bob Dilworth • Richard Goulis • 2009
Since its inception 50 years ago, RISD Glass has prioritized investigation and experimentation through focused, skilled inquiry as the basis for creative practice. The range of work produced begins as investigation of material and often extends to the immaterial; incorporating everything from light and optics, to the cinematic and performative. This is on of two series of experimental short films that celebrate this tradition, including work by a selection of Glass Alumni. - This program is free / no ticket necessary for admittance.
Curated by Rachel Berwick & Jocelyn Prince
Q&A with Shari Wills following the shorts program.
An artist whose work is based in film, video performance and installation, Sheri Wills is a Professor and the Dean of Fine Arts at RISD. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including one-person shows at the Director’s Lounge in Berlin, the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema in NYC and the International Experimental Cinema Exposition. Her work is included in the Rizzoli book Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound, by Matt Woolman.
Rachel Berwick
Rachel Berwick’s work has been shown internationally in such venues as the Serpentine Gallery in London, the 26th Bienal de Sao Paolo, the seventh International Istanbul Bienal and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. In the US she has exhibited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Mass MoCA, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, among others. She has received numerous grants including fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, a Smithsonian Artists’ Research Fellowship and The Robert Rauschenberg Residency.Berwick received her MFA from Yale School of Art and her BFA from RISD. She was a member of the faculty at the Yale School of Art Sculpture Department from 1991–99 and has since taught at RISD, where she is head of the Glass department.
Jocelyne Prince
is an artist working with the material and the conceptual properties of glass. Prince earned a B.F.A. from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. She exhibits her work in museums and alternative galleries and venues across North America, Asia and Europe. Prince is a full-time member of the faculty in Rhode IslandSchool of Design’s Glass Department.
Rosamond Purcell creates intimate portraits of things and collections that most of us ignore. Much more than a photographer, Purcell is a visual poet, fascinated with aging, death and decay, she illuminates the beauty of everyday detritus found in nature, junk yards and overlooked and hidden museum collections.
Q & A with Rosamond Purcell following the film.
Rose Hartman's cunning eye has defined the New York City social scene since the nights at studio 54, when she cultivated intimate portraits of stars like Mick and Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol. She was the first to move behind the curtains of the Fashion Week catwalks to shoot models and designers at work. Hartman has worked hard for decades, moving seamlessly between between paparazzo, street art and portraiture, slowing down just enough for the camera to capture a glimpse of her.
Q & A with Rose Hartman and Director Otis Mass following the film.
Øtis Mass, Director — Earned his film degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and began his career working on music videos, celebrity beauty spots, and has worked with numerous well known companies such as Hyundai, Neutrogena and Crest. Mass connects intimately with his subjects to reveal their most compelling, interesting, hilarious and heartfelt selves.
Kutiman is an Isreali composer who mashes up YouTube videos of musicians and singers to create original works of art. Unbeknownst to a beautiful young singer on the other side of the world, Princess Shaw, Kutiman is inspired by her to create a video orchestra for one of her original songs. The ultimate collaboration is a revelation and show us the infinite ways we can create and inspire.
Naoshima: Dream on the Tongue, is the exploration of a small Japanese Island in the Seto Inland Sea. This island is the setting for an unexpected exchange between contemporary art, tradition, and everyday life. It is an inspiring example of a rural community's revival with the help of a contemporary art sponsoring project started in the 1990's.
Q&A following the film. TBA
After decades of war and an oppressive Taliban regime, four Afghan photo-journalists face the realities of building a free press in a country left to stand on its own- re-framing Afghanistan for the world and for themselves.
Q&A following the film. TBA
Academy Award nominated Director Daniel Raim brings us the true love story of Harold, story board artist and Lillian, production designer, who married and worked together in the Hollywood studio system for decades. They were responsible for the research, art and production design of more than 100 well known films from the last sixty years. Official Selection Cannes Film festival 2015.
Q&A with Eugene Lee. He will speak about his work as well as the film Harold and Lillian
NETWORKS SHORT Providence only: Eugene Lee • Richard Goulis • 2012
An intimate portrait of the Boehms, "Concrete Love" follows a renowned family of German architects in their third generation. The film caringly explores the history of a family and their emotional connection to each other and the world of design. Winner of the 2015 Geothe Documentary Film Prize.
Q&A With Howard Ben Tré following the film.
NETWORKS SHORT: Howard Ben Tré • Richard Goulis • 2008
Harry Benson, who initially rose to fame alongside The Beatles, having been assigned to cover their inaugural trip to the United States in 1964. With unprecedented “behind the scenes” access, Benson captured some of the most vibrant and intimate portraits ever taken of the most popular band in history. The scope of his career however, includes iconic images of Winston Churchill, Bobby Fischer, Muhammad Ali, Greta Garbo, Michael Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, and his work has appeared in publications including Life, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Now 86, workaholic Benson has no intention of stopping. (Magnolia Pictures)
Q&A Following the film. TBA
The Happy Film follows famed graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister who has designed graphics for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stone and the Guggenheim Museum, as he undergoes a series of self inflicted experiments to test once and for all if it’s possible for a person to have a meaningful impact on their own happiness. Sagmeister follows a strict regimen of meditation, traditional therapy, and anti-depressants, encountering joy, ecstasy, heartbreak, change, love, and death along the way. Throughout his first film, Sagmeister uses his signature whimsical and untraditional graphic design methods and materials to accent his quest for peace and harmony.
Elisabeth Vigee LeBrun was the official painter of Marie Antoinette, whose portrait she painted 30 times. She lived through eight political systems, two revolutions, painted more than 660 portraits, and was visited in her salon by numerous political and artistic intelligentsia of the late 18th century. Although Vigee- LeBrun was the first French female painter to be recognized around the world, her struggles echo many of todays women, fighting to find freedom and equality in a male dominated society.
Q&A Following the film. TBA
Jheronimus Bosch, the controversial painter who died over 500 years ago, was most famous for his fantastical depictions in the "Garden of Earthly Delights." In preparation for an historical exhibition of his work, a team of Dutch art historians crisscross the globe using x-rays, infrared photography and multi-spectrum analysis, to investigate which paintings were truly painted by Bosch himself.
Q&A with Suzanne Scanlan following the film.
Suzanne Scanlan is on the faculty of the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture at RISD. She writes and teaches on art and culture in Europe from the 15th-18th centuries.
Harry Benson initially rose to fame alongside The Beatles, having been assigned to cover their inaugural trip to the United States in 1964. With unprecedented “behind the scenes” access, Benson captured some of the most vibrant and intimate portraits ever taken of the most popular band in history. The scope of his career however, includes iconic images of Winston Churchill, Bobby Fischer, Muhammad Ali, Greta Garbo, Michael Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, and his work has appeared in publications including Life, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Now 86, workaholic Benson has no intention of stopping. (Magnolia Pictures)
Academy Award nominated Director Daniel Raim brings us the true love story of Harold, story board artist and Lillian, production designer, who married and worked together in the Hollywood studio system for decades. They were responsible for the research, art and production design of more than 100 well known films from the last sixty years. Official Selection Cannes Film festival 2015.