Final Traces Of The Abstract Expressionists

New York / Munich, 2014 by Caro Jost DVD — 45 minutes II PAL / NTSC Color, 16:9 II Stereo, English with German subtitles This investigative art film deals with the original places at which the Abstract Expressionists lived and worked in New York after WWII. The film shows what is left of their former studios, galleries, bars and meeting places today. It is annotated with cites of the mentioned artists and with historical footage by photographers Fred W. McDarrah, Rudy Burckhardt, John Cohen, John Leongard, et al.: a juxtaposition of the past and the present. The few still living witnesses provide interviews testimony: Alex Katz meets his colleague Philip Pearlstein in the former room of a gallery, where their careers first started, after more than 40 year the widow of Ad Reinhardt re-enters his former studio for the first time again .
The film illustrates final traces of: Hans Hofmann, Peggy Guggenheim, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Franz Kline, Ruth Kligman, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko and furthermore their meeting points like Cedar Bar or The Club. 

Editor: Friedrich Rackwitz 
Camera: Hans-Albrecht Lusznat, Brendon Sumner 
Camera assistant: D.C. Washington 
Speaker: Daryl Jackson, Jean-Luc Julien 
Synchronization: Berliner Synchron, Munich 
Music: Morton Feldman „Rothko Chapel", and „Music for Jackson Pollock", Universal Edition AG Atmo: Exhibition "Abstract Expressionist New York", MoMA, New York, 2011 

With special thanks to: 
Ad Reinhardt Foundation, New York 
The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York 
Adolph and Ester Gottlieb Foundation 
Frederick Kiesler Stiftung, Vienna 
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 
Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonne office, New York 
Ameringer/McEneryNohe Gallery, New York 
L. Parker Stephenson Gallery, New York 
John Loengard, New York 
John Cohen, New York 
Fred W. McDarrah Estate, New York 
Paulus Leeser Estate, New York 
Dan Budnik, Tuscon 
Michael Fredericks, New York 
Getty Images, Munich and New York 
Museum Archives of MoMA, New York 
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institut 
Jonathan Cramer 
Alex Katz, 
Irving Sandler, 
Lynn Umlauf, 
Karole Vail, 
Lois Dodd, 
Philip Perlstein, 
Rita Reinhardt,
et. al

Premiere 
NewFilmMakerFestival, December 21, 2014, New York 
Nominations & Awards 
Best Documentary 
Sound in a Documentary 
Cinematography in a Documentary 
Honorable Award 
Filmography 
Kunstsammlung NRW, K20, Duesseldorf 
Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin 
NewFilmMakerFestival, New York 
American Documentary Film Festival, Palm Springs 
Museum fuer Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt 
Southampton International Film Festival, 
Southampton Columbia Film Festival, Maryland 
Sarasota Museum of Art-Salon, Sarasota Palm 
Springs Art Museum, Palm Desert 
Walter Storms Galerie, Munich 
New York State Film Festival (preselection), 
New York New York City Independant Film Festival, 
New York Mark Rothko Art Center, 
Daugavpils Museum Lothar Fischer, Neumarkt

WALKING WITH DEKOONING 
New York / Munich, 2011 by Caro Jost DVD — 4,42 minutes loop The short film is based on a report of Edwin Denby about Willem deKooning (1904-1997) in the 1930s: ... walking at night in Chelsea with Bill (deKooning) during the depression, and his pointing out to me on the pavement the dispersed compositions — spots and cracks and bits of wrappers and reflectons of the neon-light — and I remember the scale in the compositions ) " The film shows exactly the sidewalks, where deKooning walked around nearly every day in the 1940s in NYC: his studio at 22nd Street/7th Avenue and 6th Avenue/8th Street from Walddorf Cafeteria to the Artists Club and the Cedar Street Tavern. Streets were an important inspiration source for Willem deKooning and his work. This is explained in a lof of interviews and personal statements. Caro Jost follows into the footsteps of Willem deKooning in 2011. 
Editor: Peter Bohm 
Camera: Hans-Albrecht Lusznat 
Soundtrack recorded during the exhibition „Abstract Expressionist New York", MoMA, April 2011 infront of Willem deKoonings paintings. Street noise recorded at 8th Street, New York, 2011. 
The film is tagged with cites by Edwin Denby, Dore Ashton, Philip Pavia — close friends of deKooning.