Artists on Film

October 22–November 5, 2023

Three recent feature films and two historical short films provide in-depth, intimate access to the creative process of painters Peter Bradley and Mike Henderson, sculptor Brian Wall, and traditional Japanese wood-carver Master Seki Koun, as well as a number of his apprentices.

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With Peter Bradley
Dufus (aka Art)
Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptors of Japan
An Improbable Odyssey: The Life and Times of Brian Wall, Photograph Studio St. Ives © Bowness, Courtesy of Hepworth Photograph Collection

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Past Films

An Improbable Odyssey: The Life and Times of Brian Wall
- Sunday, November 5 2 PM
Peter Stern
United States, 2020
Copresented with the Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley

An in-depth portrait of artist Brian Wall, renowned for his abstract steel sculptures, told through fascinating interviews and archival materials. Wall taught art at UC Berkeley for over two decades and continues to live and work in the Bay Area at age ninety-two.

Brian Wall and Peter Stern in Person
Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptors of Japan
- Sunday, October 29 4 PM
Yujiro Seki
United States, Japan, 2020
Copresented by the Center for Buddhist Studies, UC Berkeley

Carving the Divine is a documentary film that offers a rare look into a 1,400-year-old Buddhist wood-carving tradition and the practitioners struggling to preserve its legacy in a rapidly changing Japan.
With Peter Bradley
- Sunday, October 22 4 PM
Alex Rappoport
United States, 2023
Presented in conjunction with What Has Been and What Could Be: The BAMPFA Collection

Pioneering Black abstract artist and curator Peter Bradley reflects on life and art in this invigorating, intimate documentary portrait. “Documentary in its purest form: one subject speaking and showing us his life and work. It is riveting” (Film Threat). With two short films by painter/filmmaker Mike Henderson.

Alex Rappoport and Mike Henderson in Person

Artists on Film

October 22–November 5, 2023

Three recent feature films and two historical short films provide in-depth, intimate access to the creative process.

The New York painter Peter Bradley speaks about his life in art as an abstract painter and curator in With Peter Bradley. For Bradley, “There’s people who just paint color. . . . Color is the most important thing.” His 1972 painting Isom Dart 1 is currently on display at BAMPFA as part of What Has Been and What Could Be: The BAMPFA Collection, in a section devoted to works by Black artists purchased by the museum in the early 1970s. Screening with this film are two archival short films by artist, musician, and filmmaker Mike Henderson; his 1979 The Yellow Pencil is on loan for the exhibition.

Made by the son of a Japanese Buddhist altar maker, Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptors of Japan provides a rare look at the artistic process of traditional...

London-born Brian Wall, a longtime Bay Area resident who taught in UC Berkeley’s Art Department for more than two decades, is known for his abstract sculptures, which include some of the earliest minimal sculptures—“I built my own aesthetic.” His life and work are detailed through archival photographs and extensive interviews in An Improbable Odyssey: The Life and Times of Brian Wall.

—Kathy Geritz, Film Curator

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With thanks to Mahen Bonetti, director, and Dara Ojugbele, program manager, African Film Festival, New York; Edda Manriquez, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Robert Sharf, UC Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies; Sylvia Brown, Brian Wall Foundation; Jeremy P. Stone, Cullman Stone LLC; and Erik Nelson, manager, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley.