Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? [HD]

Trucker momma proves the emperor has no clothes!
This film just tickled me; delightfully done with a light touch, it pits a down-to-earth dumpster-diving trucker named Teri Horton against a pretentious boatload of art world snobs, and she proves (in the words of a famous author) that they don't know their scrotums from Kentucky-fried-chicken. The film stands up well as a documentary, covering a lot of ground to interview witnesses who knew Pollock, as well as forensic, art, and legal experts. Bottom line is that the fingerprint and other physical evidence pointing to the authenticity of the painting is just overwhelming; if this were a murder case, there would be more than ample evidence to send someone to the electric chair. The only thing standing between Ms. Horton and $50,000,000 (the estimated value of the painting if it were deemed authentic) is a bunch of arrogant blowholes who can't utter a single coherent or persuasive sentence in support of their position that the painting is a fake. If I ever had any doubts about the...

Fair and Real
I am an artist of thirty years and consider myself well-read and aware in regards to artworld issues and painting, my main form of expression. Having grown up with people who became the world's most profound art critics once they got a little alcohol in them and who regularly counseled me that what I was learning in art school was all wrong, I found this DVD quite fun. It was fair to both the experts and the philistines.

I am sure that the experts will seem quite funny to a lot of folks. Yes, it looks weird the way elderly men twist and dance in front of Teri's painting to visually test it for it's possible Pollockness. But, those feelings are ironic in the context of this story. While experts are questioned as to how they know what they know, other experts are touted as being experts, and therefore right. I suppose it is a matter of expert against expert.

This DVD has something for everyone. Beyond its entertainment value, it offers a great lesson in how...

Is the provenance of the film as important as the provenance of the painting?
On the surface of it, 'Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?' is the struggle of 73-year-old Teri Horton, a retired long-haul truck driver, to authenticate her five dollar flea market find as a genuine Jackson Pollock painting. As the film progresses though, the emphasis subtly shifts from recording Teri's authentication efforts to highlighting how the established art world dismissed her claim based solely on her outsider status. From their perspective, she's a kook, one who's wasting their time with a pipe dream of having found a fifty million dollar painting in a thrift store. To her, their refusal even to return her phone calls when she began her quest was tantamount to a declaration of war. So she enlists the help of Peter Paul Biro, a forensic specialist, and Tod Volpe, a former art dealer to Hollywood film stars - who had also served two years in prison for defrauding those same celebrities.

As I watched this film, and as the filmmakers documented the evidence to...

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