Release Date: August 29,2024
The Nightlight Cinema opens Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea in 3D for special one-day-only screenings
Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea in 3D is screening on Thursday, September 12th, at 5:45 pm and 7:45 pm At The Nightlight Cinema, 30 N High St. Akron, OH 44308
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Akron, Ohio (Aug. 29, 2024) — The Nightlight Cinema and the Akron Art Museum present Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea, a 3D documentary film about the life and work of artist, marine, and acrobat H.C. (Cliff) Westermann. As a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, Westermann’s dramatic personal history can be traced through beguiling, surreal artworks he made to process the horrors he witnessed on the front lines. In so doing, he became an inspiration for many young artists. The film reveals ways in which Westermann protected his empathic spirit – and sanity – by ‘sculpting’ his body, artworks, friendships, his hand-hewn house, and his art-filled letters to his dearest friends and family. The documentary explores themes of resiliency, hope, and humor with a script culled from over a thousand of Westermann’s letters and one audio interview – voiced by four-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris. Join The Nightlight Cinema as they present a one-day-only event with two screenings at 5:45 and 7:45 pm EST on Thursday, September 12th, 2024, at 30 North High St. Akron, OH 44308.
"The Nightlight is proud to bring this extraordinary art film to Akron, continuing our city's rich history of engaging with innovative artworks. Building on the Akron Art Museum's past exhibitions of Westermann sculptures, this film takes audience immersion to new heights through cutting-edge 3D technology. We're witnessing a revolution in documentary filmmaking, where stereoscopic cameras and advanced rigs allow directors to represent artists and their works with unprecedented eloquence and depth. Pentimenti Productions has harnessed these tools to create an engrossing journey into Westermann's artwork and life story. This film exemplifies how immersive technology is transforming the art of cinema itself, offering our community a chance to experience art in a profoundly new way."
- Jenn Kidd, Executive Director of The Nightlight
The film was conceived and directed by Leslie Buchbinder and features interviews with Ed Ruscha, Frank Gehry, William T. Wiley, Billy Al Bengston, and other artist-pals, along with his beloved sister, Martha Westermann Renner. The film is executive produced by the internationally acclaimed artist, KAWS, along with award-winning documentary producer Caryn Capotosto, whose prior projects include Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Best of Enemies. Westermann features music by legendary artists Laurie Anderson (with the Kronos Quartet) and Terry Allen; Tomeka Reid, MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner, composed the original score.
The film follows Cliff Westermann’s compelling journey to process his post-war PTSD through the act of making art. Act 1 immerses the viewer in Westermann’s experiences of sea and ground combat in the Pacific theater of World War II and the Korean War, respectively, and explores how this crucible forged his unlikely commitment to the path of a visual artist.
Act 2 probes the struggles of post-traumatic stress and the challenge of extracting meaning from war – while also finding love with fellow artist Joanna Beall. Westermann speaks of morally ambiguous events which led him to a skeptical position that has a strong kinship with the literature of post-WWII veteran authors Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, and Norman Mailer. Act 3 culminates with Westermann, heretofore a patriotic marine, experiencing a surprising anti-war transformation in response to the Vietnam War, describing himself to a fellow marine as having taken “a left wing right-about face”. Filmed within mirrored settings that create the illusion of infinite space, the film also includes acrobatic theatrical scenes that further the themes of our film about a man who not only was a professional artist, but an acrobat as well, whose life was a constant balancing act, as he stated in a letter to his sister Martha:
“I have been working exceedingly hard over quite an extended period of time now and I’m a little beat...Seems I’m always spending my last nickel on a piece of wood or glue or a tool and I don’t worry. I have a roof over my head and eat... I only owe 10$ altogether + generally I have the time I need which is the most important thing. The responsibility that art requires is unimaginable, even to most artists, oddly enough... I guess I’m relegated to always walking this tightrope, but this is the way it has to be.”
- H.C. Westermann
About H.C. Westermann: H.C. (Cliff) Westermann, born in Los Angeles in 1922, led a life that reads like the plot of a great American novel. As a young man, he worked in logging camps in the Pacific Northwest, witnessed kamikaze attacks as a Marine gunner on the USS Enterprise in WWII, and toured Asia as a performing acrobat with the USO. In 1947, he enrolled at the School of the Art Institute under the GI Bill, left in 1950 to fight in the Korean War, then later returned to Chicago to complete his studies. Westermann had a Zelig-like tendency to find himself aligned with significant moments and figures in 20th century history: he sold his first sculpture to the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1957. In 1959, he married fellow artist Joanna Beall, a former student of Josef Albers at Yale University. The couple moved in 1961 to Brookfield Center, CT, where they later built their own house and two art studios.
In 1967, he was among the crowd pictured on The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. In 1968, while in residence at Tamarind LIthography Workshop in L.A., Westermann quickly became a beloved figure in the flourishing art scene, where he was friend and mentor to artists like Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, and Ken Price. One of Westermann’s first notable solo museum exhibitions was in 1968 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, alongside Billy Al Bengston’s gallery installation designed by the young, burgeoning architect, Frank Gehry, who also became a close friend of Cliff’s. In 1978, the Whitney Museum of American Art staged a major retrospective of Westermann’s work, launching him into greater international visibility. By 1980, his career was accelerating, with exhibitions at museums across the U.S. and internationally. He and Joanna were nearly finished with their hand-built home –referred to as a large-scale sculpture by his artist friends – when Westermann tragically died of a heart attack in 1981 at the age of 58. Solo retrospectives of Westermann’s art have been exhibited internationally, most recently at the Reina Sofia, Madrid (2019), and the Fondazione Prada, Milan (2018).
Cliff Westermann was enamored of the creative potential of tools, and their ability to transform raw materials into objects of totemic power. Wanting to respect Westermann’s ethos, I determined that the tools of 3D technology offered the ideal conduit to convey the literal and metaphorical multidimensionality of Westermann’s works in a visually lush, meditative way.
Director’s Statement: My goal for this film was to create an immersive infinity space where H.C. Westermann’s artworks could exist within their own world – a Westermann-Land – that offers the viewer powerful, intimate experiences of these remarkable vestiges of his survival of WWII, the Korean War, as well as an ever-looming sense of the existential threats of nuclear annihilation. I took inspiration from Wim Wenders’ 3D film, Pina, that brought the sculptural beauty of Pina Bausch’s dancers to full life, as I wished to do for Westermann’s artworks.
The artist’s studio is a place of solace and meditation – a respite from the 24/7 newsfeed recounting our current world’s own horrors – and for Westermann, a ‘home’ to return to after traveling for exhibition installations, openings, artist residencies, speaking engagements, interviews, etc. I’ve always been drawn to Westermann’s ability to create a haven for art-making, where empathy mitigates rage, and flow supplants the endless voices that tap, tap, tap our brains. In that hand-built space, he also crafted a safety net for himself and others, woven of a veritable tapestry of letters plus art-gifts to and from his nearest, dearest pals that protected him from falling off life's tightrope into the abyss. There, he could feel radical empathy for all who fought wars, including his enemies, as exemplified by his artwork, “Death Ship Out of San Pedro, Adrift: Dedicated to All the Dead Kamikaze Pilots and to All The Men Killed by Them.”
In making this film, I wanted to pay homage to the companionship and courage Westermann’s life, art, and letters have provided me – as well as to multitudes of other artists beyond those interviewed in the film, e.g. Paul McCarthy, Jim Shaw, Laura Owens, Jeff Koons, Aaron Curry, Amy Sillman, Ed Moses, Larry Bell, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Roger Brown, Karl Wirsum, Christina Ramberg, and KAWS.
Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea in 3D opens at 5:45 pm EST on Thursday, September 12th, 2024, followed by an encore screening at 7:45 pm the same day.
The Nightlight Cinema is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit movie theater dedicated to bringing the best in independent and arthouse cinema to Greater Akron, with a mission to foster community connection through cinema. By offering thoughtfully curated and quality films that are diverse in scope, The Nightlight fosters connection through a shared cinematic journey - where all can experience and celebrate the magic and power of cinema. Through thoughtful curation and programming, we strive to ignite meaningful conversations, bridge communities, and expose our patrons to diverse voices and global perspectives.