'The Art of The Steal' Opens at The Belcourt 3/26; Special Panel Held on 3/29

The Art of the Steal plays like a thrilling whodunit of The Barnes Foundation, a remarkable collection of post-impressionist and early modernist art is staggering in quantity: 181 paintings by Renoir, 69 by Cézanne, 59 by Matisse and 46 by Picasso, including many masterpieces. He designed his will in order to make the collection safe from commercial exploitation and, upon his death in 1951, left the collection to a small African-American college. More than fifty years later, a powerful group of moneyed interests have gone to court to take the art - recently valued at more than $25 billion - and bring it to a new museum in Philadelphia much to the consternation and mobilization of the locals and students. The story includes twists, turns and double-crosses that the filmmaker deftly adopts an investigative approach to unravel the complicated politics and personalities that determined the fate of the Barnes collection. Drawing upon research from John Anderson's book Art Held Hostage, multiple questions are raised: How is art best served? Should it be reserved for true connoisseurs or made available to the most eyeballs possible? And who decides? These are some of the questions that the panel will attempt to address, as well as questions from the audience.

PANEL DISCUSSION ON Monday, March 29th
Movie will begin at 6:30p with a panel discussion immediately following including:
Mark Scala, Chief Curator at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Jim Hoobler, Senior Curator of Art and Architecture at the Tennessee State Museum
Jodi Hays Gresham. Director, Tennessee State University Art Galleries
at The Belcourt Theatre, 2102 Belcourt Avenue

Relevant not only to art collectors and galleries, but especially in Nashville and the Middle Tennessee area to the Van Vechten Collection at Fisk, as well as the property of The Tennessee State Fairgrounds.
Media Contact:
HayLee Hall: 615.846.3150 ext. 16 or 615.585.8400 cell; haylee@belcourt.org

Tickets available online: www.belcourt.org or at the Box Office at 2102 Belcourt Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212
Information: 615.383.9140

The Belcourt Theatre is a nonprofit cultural institution dedicated to presenting the best of independent, documentary, and world cinema; promoting visual literacy; and making film a vibrant part of the community while serving as a regular and important home for independent voices in music and theatre. Housed in Nashville's last historic neighborhood theatre, the Belcourt Theatre provides opportunities for people of all ages to discover, explore and learn through the power of film, music and theatre. Opening in 1925 as a silent movie house, the theatre was home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1934-36. Since the re-opening of the theatre in 1999 more than 500,000 people from Middle Tennessee have come here to see nearly 1,000 films from every corner of the globe, musicians both long established and newly emerging and theatre from some of Nashville's most creative and imaginative artists.

 

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