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My Kid Could Paint That

Review By: Shawn Hazelett
sch249@nyu.edu

Few topics polarize American opinion like the issue of modern art. Whether there are multi-colored spirals painted on a canvas, a stack of black cubes, or an arrangement of magazine clippings to form an obscenity, modern art usually evokes two reactions: this is genius, or this could have been done by a four-year old. This divide is the focal point of the aptly-titled, My Kid Could Paint That, a documentary about four-year old Marla Olmstead from Binghamton, New York, chronicling a girl who fooled around with a paint brush and crashed the modern art world.

Marla’s rise to prominence begins, as is often the case, by happenstance. One day, her father Mark decides to take up painting and buys himself a set of art supplies. Little Marla, probably entranced by the colors, asks if she can try, and, after dabbling a bit on some loose-leaf paper, Mark hands her a canvas and she churns out a painting. Though seemingly nothing more than a collection of paint swirls, her enjoyment encourages her parents to provide more blank canvases, and she fills them up with swirls and dots and long brush strokes of various colors. Eventually, a friend and coffeehouse owner sees one of her paintings, and for kicks they all decide to put one on display at the coffeehouse. Soon enough, the paintings gather interest from several patrons. Feeling that her paintings could possibly be art, Marla’s parents solicit the advice of a local artist, who is skeptical as a realist painter; still, he helps the parents organize a gallery, and Marla becomes a hit.

Marla’s paintings are selling for thousands and her small-town parents are wearing turtle-necks and sipping wine with New York City’s cultural elite. We see art experts in SoHo deconstructing the paintings. Some use terms like “abstract realism”, conforming the work into a sub-category of modern art. One shows us that beneath the swirls, there appears to be a perfectly formed human standing behind a window. Everyone from Oprah to Letterman wants an interview, but the parents only allow “60 Minutes” for an exclusive.

What is so special about modern art? A friend once described modern art as an artistic evolution caused by the advent of photography; with machinery able to capture precise images, some felt realist painting was no longer a practical endeavor. Thus, a pocket of modern artists emerged, and their work became appreciated not because of the work itself, but because of the work relative to the feelings of its creator during the process.

That seems like a fair assessment. But how does that discriminate talent?

The “60 Minutes” special, hosted by Charlie Rose, features an expert who describes Marla as a prodigy. Then, a hidden video camera captures Marla painting in the basement. She’s in her diapers, crawling all over the canvas, applying paint here and there, and what results is something not unlike her previous paintings. Or ...