Review of My Kid Could Paint That (2007) by Amelia W — 23 Jul 2008

This documentary raises a lot of questions, arguably the least interesting of which is whether Marla Olmstead really produced these paintings on her own. More interesting is the question of whether it matters and why: Is a work of contemporary art valuable for its own innate qualities or only made valuable by the context of its creation, the "cult of the artist"? If Marla created these painting on her own, is abstract expressionism revealed as a scam? And would it be somehow vindicated if Marla's paintings actually were to be conclusively revealed as frauds? Why? An interesting documentary on a number of levels.

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