Kumu Documentary: Unstoppable: Sean Scully and the Art of Everything
Location: Kumu auditorium
Dir Nick Willing
UK 2019, 83 min
In English
The film follows the abstract painter Sean Scully, one of Britain’s richest artists, for a year’s journey around the world. From Washington to St Petersburg to Mexico City to Berlin, the film travels with Scully to 15 different openings of Scully’s exhibitions in the world’s most prestigious museums and galleries: a journey that culminates in a major show at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
In Nick Willing’s documentary, Scully opens up about his unique experiences spanning 55 years in an often hostile art world, how he built a reputation from nothing, having grown up on the streets of Dublin and London, penniless and often homeless as a child to become the influential powerhouse he is today. Through his eyes, we’ll explore the inner alchemy of the art world, how reputations are made and broken, and the symbiotic alliance between money and society’s social conscience, which sets the fashions and tastes of our time. The film reveals how Scully’s force of personality, single-mindedness, persistence and utter disregard for criticism and rejection have helped drive him from obscurity to being one of the world’s most celebrated artists.
