Curio 2020: Ten movies that will inspire artists

Curated by Nathaniel R

Gorgeous AND THEN WE DANCED collage from Istanbul based artist "Pervane"

Each day we're doing a "year in review" list. When Alexa used to do her Curio series we got a fine overview of what type of films generally inspire artists. The well known classics, of course, but also movies with queer sensibilities, movies from auteurs, movies of any genre outside of drama / comedy but especially horror. The magic ingredient just might be movies and stories that lend themselves to visual reinterpretation or perpetual discovery or which are courting cult favor in some way by their nature or their aesthetic choices. Not every movie that deserves mass fandom gets it. We're dying to know for example what contemplative moving American stories like Nomadland or Minari might bring out in artists? What would cartoonists or painters make of emotionally severe but visually rich movies like Russia's Beanpole or Chile's Ema?  And why isn't every online sketch-machine obsessed with Riz Ahmed's face, tats, and platinum hair in Sound of Metal? Whyyyyyy?

Without further ado here are 10 films from 2020 that we think will continue to inspire visual art. If you click on the links you can see more from that particular artist. Most of them have merch shops or take commissions...

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Curio: Paul Harding's Collectible Heroes

by Nathaniel R

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As someone who studied illustration but couldn't wrap my hands around three-dimensional work, I've always been fascinated and envious of sculptors. In fact, whenever I'm in a museum I'm much more likely to drift towards sculptures than stare at paintings. In fan culture sculptors have a special if uncelebrated place. Someone has to sculpt those action figures and collectibles you can buy and CG animation involves lots of 3 dimensional rendering. Paul Harding recently caught our eye for a jaw-dropping rendering of the principal characters of our current favourite comedy series What We Do in the Shadows (pictured above). It's brilliant caricature and the details in the expressions are joy-making -- look at Nadja's eye roll! 

More examples of his work after the jump...

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Curio: Viola and "Firsts" on Vanity Fair Covers

For this week's Curio let's talk the history of magazine covers rather than fan art.

Isn't the new Vanity Fair cover a beauty?! Viola Davis's profile has gotten a lot of attention but so has the fact that this is the first cover in VF's history to be shot by a black photographer. The name of that very talented man is Dario Calmese and he's previously shot George MacKay and Billy Porter for the magazine.

There's a lot of outrage online: how can this be the first after 100 years? Because we grew up as magazine junkies (before the internet *gasp*) this factoid is interesting and indeed outrageous but also a bit misleading. We'll talk about that in a hot second but first let's focus on the beauty and power of VIOLA DAVIS who we're so proud to have been stanning right here since 2002 when we gave her a gold medal in our annual awards six years before the world at large caught on. Our awards were only celebrating their 3rd birthday then.

How time flies. Now she's a superstar and who is more deserving? No one...

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Curio: "Unorthodox" and "Normal People"

by Nathaniel R

"Normal People" animation by Nadia Hazzahrah

Though I thought about sharing my personal Emmy ballot I realized I would have to abstain since I haven't seen some of the key series that many feel are deserving. This is not true of the limited series category where I have seen enough to have passionate favourites and others I do not care for (sorry Little Fires Everywhere and Hollywood). My ballot would read like so:

• Mrs America
• Normal People 
• Unbelievable
• Unorthodox ★
• Watchmen

So for this week's Curio let's look at fan art for the two shows from that ballot that we're most worried about Emmy voters skipping...

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Curio: The Art of Kadir Nelson

Curated by Nathaniel R

Since we rebooted Alexa's old series Curio we've been focusing on specific movies or themes but this week we want to spotlight a famous artist who is getting another well-earned round of attention at the moment, with big magazine covers celebrating the Black Lives Matter movement for both The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. His name is Kadir Nelson. The 46 year old painter, who's won numerous awards in his career has done album covers, stamps, book covers, magazine illustration, and children's books. He sells limited edition lithographs, prints, and autographed books at his shop but you can also purchase his books at Amazon and other retailers at regular prices if you don't have a big budget for art.

His art focuses on African-American history but he doesn't do much movie-related art. That said he did work on two movies, Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997) and the animated feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) early in his career. We scoured his Instagram for a few movie/tv related pieces after the jump...

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