‘Make Me Famous’ – and Other Things People Want From Art

In the fascinating art-world documentary Make Me Famous, painter Edward Brezinski finally gets his wish. Although he died — probably — in 2007, Brezinski’s largely...

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In the fascinating art-world documentary Make Me Famous, painter Edward Brezinski finally gets his wish. Although he died — probably — in 2007, Brezinski’s largely unrealized goal in his lifetime was to be a successful artist. Even his mysterious death, in the South of France, didn’t raise his profile or prices — as it has for others and as perhaps he hoped it would do for him. Unclear. But this film succeeds where the artist failed, turning his life and art into the main attraction, with enough conviction to ensure he’ll be more than a footnote in art history. 

The most press Brezinski ever got was when he ate a resin-coated donut sculpture by Robert Gober, at Paula Cooper Gallery. This made Cooper mad; Gober tried to warn him about the toxic coating but otherwise seemed bemused, if not enthused. It made Brezinski quite ill, of course, and infamous, if temporarily. So little was known about his 2007 death that the filmmakers themselves, accompanied by some who knew him best, went to France to investigate, a decade after his demise was reported — with some finding it plausible that he had faked the whole thing.

There wasn’t a party he didn’t attend or a camera in a room he couldn’t find.

Focused on the New York City art scene — specifically, the Lower East Side — of the 1980s, the film is thankfully light on Warhol, Haring, Wojnarowicz, and Basquiat references, giving just as much as is needed for context and chronicle, influence and aspiration, but allowing other artists and musicians, family members, curators, and collectors (well, one very dedicated collector) to add their own tales to the Brezinski storyline. Through a treasure trove of contemporaneous photographs and videotape, the filmmakers set the scene and invest time in the backstories of each interviewee, so that through learning about Brezinski’s life, we learn more about the times in which he lived, rather than just the usual glamorous Greatest Hits.

Most of those who sat for this documentary were fellow artists, people who knew him well and exhibited in or attended the edgy salons he held in his rather terrifying apartment — a walk-up on 3rd Street that no one ever fails to mention was directly opposite a rather grim men’s shelter, and where Brezinski staged art events, having dubbed it the Magic Gallery. 

It was clear there wasn’t a party he didn’t attend or a camera in a room he couldn’t find. But his prolific output of paintings, which is also satisfyingly explored in depth in the film, belies the eccentric party-boy persona. Brezinski’s work was mostly portraiture, of his friends, colleagues, and game strangers. His neo-expressionist style was thick, clotted with abstract gestures and infused with both European (particularly Germanic) art history and the crimes of passion that characterized his social life. 

Eventually, a parade of gallerists, writers, and historians weigh in as well, adding scholarly context and personal recollections. It seems as if everyone knew him and he knew everyone — and most agreed he had talent. So what went wrong? Make Me Famous uses the story of an artist who was by all accounts both charismatic and awkward, driven and distracted, and who never quite made it, to examine the nature of creativity and the obstacles to fame that faced an important generation of American artists.  ❖

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