All You Need Is Art
(formerly titled: Where Cultures, Money and Art Meet)
One hour creative documentary
First phase of filming is completed (June 27-July 19).
Currently in post-production.
“It is through art, and through art only,
that we can realize our perfection:
through art, and through art only
that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.”
Oscar Wilde
The TV documentary ‘All You Need Is Art’ paints a picture of hope: in a world which is in pursuit of power and money, some individuals challenge these ‘values,’ focusing on friendship and support, immersing themselves in art and sharing their art and their vision of the world – the way they think it should be - with others.
 This is Francis Greenburger, a New York real-estate millionaire, whose loveless childhood planted in him the urge to make millions, which in turn brought him no love.
Having experienced tragedy and pain in his life, he discovered some 13 years ago that only through art and contact with artists, he could find the sense of meaning and fulfillment, which he missed in his life.
He created ‘Art-Omi’, an artists’ residency in Upstate New York, where for three weeks each summer he immerses himself in art while he invites some 30 artists from countries as far as Korea and Senegal, to focus on their art and meet other artists.
‘All You Need Is Art’, though a journey through painful memories and harsh lives, brings about hope, which comes from the individual’s self-expression, sharing and support. Questioning the currently ruling ‘values’ of financial gains -- at al costs.
Here are our ‘heroes’:
This is Gabriel 
Gabriel Kemzo Malou of Senegal, produced in three weeks an amazing body of work, sculptures of metal, steel and wood, all reflecting African roots, combining elements of the Western world, in a way which is both cynical and poetic.
Annette Munk from former East Berlin did a funny and inspired sculpture, using over a thousand discarded plastic cups, which the other artists used and collected for her. Her work was a protest against waste and neglect.
Gerhard Mayer of Germany did a meticulous work of black and white painting on three walls in the studio he was allocated. Bringing his precise ‘German’ education and background, he devised his own ‘rules’ for painting. Amazingly, his rigid rules produce a most lively and free-moving work!
Shigeko Hirakawa expressed her on-going message of saving the environment, with an installation of soap-bubbles in the fields .
Jinkee Choi from Korea was able to come thanks to the Paradise Culture Foundation of Korea. Jinkee’s work is singular in that he takes daily objects and by rendering them slightly he makes the viewer see a world of wonders and amazement. In his work there’re many hints of criticism on society.
Caoimhghin (pronounced Queeveen) O Fraithile of Ireland, was working with grass, hay and tree-branches from the area, as well as with used bed-sheets he brought all the way from a hospital in Ireland. Using ancient techniques of Irish farmers, he built a wooden hut, covered it with rags he tore from the bed sheets and transported the whole thing to a nearby lake. All the artists participated in this procession, some twenty people carrying the hut, the rest walking / dancing around it...
Of course, we filmed this procession, which was a most lively and exciting event. Next step was to transport the hut to the center of the lake, in order to burn it down the next evening. This moving of the hut, again engaged most of the artists. Only that half way through the process, the hut slowly but surely sank into the water. This did not discourage the artist at all. Together with the technical team of Art/Omi, using a pulley and getting help from many of the artists, who were diving and pushing the hut back to shore, finally the hut came out of the water, dripping water and covered with silt. As we were filming all this, Queeveen turned to us and said, smiling, yet almost crying, that now the hut has been properly ‘baptized’.. (In spite of all these adventures and a pouring rain, the hut was finally burnt down, as planned)
Vilmantas of Lithuania did a series of huge, colourful paintings in Art/Omi. Back home, this Lithuanian artist is a great success in Denmark: the Danish
Royal House chose him over Danish artists to paint the portraits of the Royal Family. Vilmantas’ work gave us the inspiration to make a very singular shot, in which we mounted the camera on one side of a glass, while Vilmantas was painting on the other side of the glass, gradually covering it (and the camera’s view) completely, painting a colorful and humorous painting in his unique style.
Mithu Sen from India is making exquisite work, using her own hair, in a protest against the treatment of women in India. Her work is very simple yet powerful.
On the contrary David Solow from the United States is making complex installations, using video and film projections, complicated sound effects, using huge spaces and advanced technologies in his deeply psychological works.
Flo Oy Wong, a Chinese American, is using rice, physically and metaphorically, and her art is her constant struggle with her private demons of crime, poverty and hunger, which dominated her childhood.
While Dylan Stone, a British artist, is dealing with his own childhood and complicated relationship with his parents, by painstakingly painting his parent’s library, in real size, in watercolor.
Being an outspoken person, full of humor and spontaneity, Dylan also engaged other Art/Omi artists in a few Happenings, which he created and filmed. The most controversial was a Homoerotic work, which caused lots of discussions among the artists and the management of Art/Omi.
None of these artists is rich, by any standards. Queeveen is supported by his brother, Dylan by his parents, David by his father – who also came to see the exhibition of the Open Day at Art/Omi; Mithu Sen and Gabriel are supported by their families, Jinkee by his wife and Flo by her husband. They all have ‘day jobs’ such as art teachers, waiters, graphic designers etc. Ironically, Vilmantas, who comes from one of the poorer eastern European countries, is currently best-off, thanks to the commission he got from the Danish Royal House..
The life story of the millionaire who initiated and funded Art/Omi, Francis Greenburger, is in itself a fascinating saga, as he tells it: His mother, Ingrid, was born in Berlin, into a family which was involved in the creation of the Nazi party. When she was 16 she ran away from home and joined the French Resistance. She fell in love with André, one of the top Resistance leaders, who tragically was killed a few days before the liberation, not knowing that Ingrid was pregnant.
After the war Ingrid gave birth to a son, named him André (after her French lover) and moved to the USA, where she met the Jewish refugee Stanford Greenburger, the literary agent of Kafka. Out of their marriage Francis was born. He remembers constant quarrels between his parents over André; a feeling that his mother sides with her elder son, her only memory of the French hero, while neglecting him.
At the age of 15 he left home and started his own literary agency. Being, as he calls it, ‘a business prodigy’ he soon made more money than his father, especially when he ventured into real estate, too.
40 years later he’s one of New York’s leading real estate magnates, while his literary agency is dealing with best sellers (the recent of which is ‘The Da Vinci Code.)
Yet, all these years, Francis felt that his life is not complete.
He married late and had a son, who tragically drowned in a swimming pool when he was 2 years old.
This horrific experience has made him question his life and sets of values.
By now, during these three weeks each summer, he’s spending every moment he can spare from his business with ‘his’ artists. He gets from them a sense of the world, which he cannot get in any other way. These poor artists seem to have the riches, which Francis misses.
Art comes in the news only when huge amounts of money are involved. ‘Ordinary’ people don’t get to meet artists at all, a small minority ever goes into a gallery. To most people artists seem like a superfluous breed, their art almost always a total enigma.
Indeed, most artists live from hand to mouth. But financially poor as they are, since they cherish other values than money and power, the group
of people we met in Art/Omi showed us an alternative way of thinking, and through their art, they managed to question many of our deeply-rooted conceptions of what’s important in life.
 ‘All You Need Is Art’ is a documentary, which will explore, through the events and interactions during three weeks in upstate New York, what is this unique thing which art can contribute to our lives.  Hopefully, some of the viewers‘ notions of the meanings of Money, Fame, Power and Happiness will be challenged, if not doubted altogether…
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Current state:
In June-July 2004 we completed the filming in the little village of Omi in Upstate New York and in NYC, where we filmed over 100 hours of very exciting material, both visually and content-wise.
We now have the first 19 minutes of the rough cut ready and we plan to have documentary ready by June 2008.
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