New Orleans Film Society

Synopsis

This film ask the fundamental questions, what is art, where is it born, and Who decides what is great art?
Thornton Dial is a self-taught artist who only began seriously making art after his retirement. He worked in Alabama as a carpenter, bricklayer, welder, and steelworker, starting a business making painted steel furniture. Mr. Dial started constructing figurative sculptures, then paintings and mixed-media assemblages. It wasn’t long before he was discovered by the outside art world, and showing his ‘things’ at galleries and museums, including The New Museum in New York and the Whitney Biennial.
His art functions like folk tales, combining African and American traditions, as the visual interpretation of life from America’s former slave culture, this improvisational style provides a unique artistic view of American history.
Are works produced by artists who never received formal training equal in dollar value to pieces created by talent honed in art classes? Mr. Dial has something to say!