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Sunday, October 6, 2024 |
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The art collections are real; the owners are not |
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For Oliver Stones 2010 film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, scenic artists made copies of a lost Goya study based on Saturn Devouring His Son. Fanny Pereire is the curator behind many eye-popping paintings you see in movies and TV shows like Succession and Mrs. America. Fanny Pereire via The New York Times.
by Jillian Steinhauer
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NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Episode 2 of Mrs. America, the new TV show dramatizing the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment, features a glamorous party at the Guggenheim Museum. Its 1972, and Gloria Steinem is launching her new magazine, Ms. She mingles, dances and then talks shop with a fellow womens movement leader, Bella Abzug. As the two walk up the museums ramp, artworks on the walls peek out behind them.
Fanny Pereire, who has spent more than a decade placing art in television and film productions, was indispensable to the making of that scene. Her nearly three dozen credits include the Oliver Stone film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), the all-female heist movie Oceans 8 (2018), as well as the recent high-profile TV series Billions, Succession and Mrs. America, which debuted last month on Hulu to critical acclaim (and runs through May).
I create art collections for people who dont exist, Pereire likes to say. She dreams up what Midwestern housewives or New York City billionaires might hang on their walls and then clears the rights to use either real, existing works or, more often, to re-create them on set.
Pereire studied architecture and costume design at Bennington College. But it was an internship-turned-job at Christies that prepared her for her future career. As part of the auction houses public relations team, she worked with publications and helped in the sales room during bidding. In the process, she studied not only art but also those who collect it to understand how people use art to represent themselves.
Its a lesson that served her well as she transitioned into the entertainment industry, which, after a series of copyright lawsuits brought by artists in the 1990s, started to be more careful about obtaining permission. Pereires first gig in what would become her new role came in 2002 on the set of the revenge drama Changing Lanes. Since then productions have multiplied, as have requests for art: Artists Rights Society, which handles many of those clearances, has seen a threefold increase in the past five years. In the process, that one-off assignment has since grown into a full-fledged job: fine art coordinator.
Pereire spoke by phone from her New York City home about the joys and challenges of her job. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: Whats your process?
A: I get a script; I get a character, just like everyone else in the production team. The costume designer will come up with the costume; the production designer thinks about where would they live, what their office would look like. I put what they would have on their wall, and either it says something about who they are or whats happening in the scene.
I have to take all sorts of things in consideration: the period, what were trying to say and the cost Im not going to put a million-dollar painting on the wall for somebody who makes $50,000 a year. I want it to be credible.
Q: Are you looking through your own files, images youve collected from seeing art over the years?
A: I have 57,128 photos and 810 videos on my computer. Plus I have Dropbox and other things those are just photos that Ive taken.
Q: Once you come up with the art, what happens next?
A: I get clearance from the artist or their representative, or from the estate. From there I have to procure a very good digital file of the artwork. If its a watercolor, its reproduced on paper; if its a canvas, its reproduced on canvas. The art departments scenic artists will finish them off to make sure that if the camera goes close enough, it looks like the real thing.
Q: It seems as if you helped create the role of fine art coordinator.
A: Yes, somewhat. But the thing is, for a long time, lets say they wanted a de Kooning. They had to make something that sort of looked like a de Kooning, but not enough like a de Kooning that de Kooning could say, you have my painting and you didnt ask my permission. So it ends up being just as consuming. Its much easier to get permission for the real thing.
Q: What was one of your best placements?
A: In Changing Lanes, Ben Affleck is at a crossroads in his life. Across from his desk I put an Alex Katz painting [Harbor #9] of this person walking on the beach. It was actually twice as big as what I had the wall for, but they allowed us to reproduce it at just the right proportion. At one point Afflecks character is like, should I go away and move somewhere and walk on the beach? That painting was the perfect rendition of what was going on in the characters mind.
Q: The Guggenheim scene in Mrs. America takes place in the actual museum. Did you use the art that was already on the walls?
A: Yes. That was sort of the chance of a lifetime. When the production designer called me, she knew I was going to be jumping up and down, because I had done other things at the Guggenheim but never with Guggenheim artwork. She said, youre going to go there with the location manager, and youre going to have to take a picture of every single piece for those two ramps [in the scene]. And then youre going have to clear every piece and make sure that [it wasnt] made after 1972. Anything thats not adequate for our script, youre going to have to figure out what to do with it.
Q: Is there more prominent art coming in Mrs. America?
A: There is another scene in Episode 8, which is the womens conference in Houston. I think its 1977 or 79. In there I have two very large Rothkos. But those are definitely reproductions, whereas at the Guggenheim it was all original artwork.
Q: How often do you use real work versus reproductions?
A: At the Guggenheim we had no choice, because they werent going to take all the artwork off during the night for us to shoot and then put it back in the morning. When we shoot in a location for a day or two, I will either keep artwork thats there and have it watched, or I will borrow or rent original artwork. I certainly dont want to have original artworks for a long time. But Aaron Youngs artworks in Billions ended up staying for the whole season, and they were original. It took a special forklift to hang them, [and] nobody could reach them because they were very high up and far away.
Q: Whats one of the most prominent placements youve done?
A: In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, our character had an extensive art collection. He had Richard Prince cowboys and Warhols but also old masters. We wanted him to have something that was unique and priceless, and Oliver [Stone] wanted something that everybody would know what it was. So I came up with a Goya. Theres a series of Goyas at the Prado, and theres one thats been lost over the years. You dont really know exactly what it looks like. And so, from my research of the drawings of the missing piece, we made the painting [a study for Saturn Devouring His Son].
We had five of them made because the character, at one point, out of rage, slams the painting and tears it with his teeth. Afterward, the actor, Josh Brolin, said, Im so sorry; I was really in the scene. I said, Dont worry, we still have a couple more. We ended up damaging three, I think, and I think Oliver has one copy, and our producer still has a copy in her office.
Q: What usually happens to reproductions when youre done with them?
A: At the end of shooting, theres a whole other part of the process: proof of destruction. Sometimes [whoever licensed the work] will want us to return our official copies, or theyll want proof of destruction, in which case I will destroy the artwork and send them pieces of it and pictures of it being destroyed. Or I send them a video with one of us slashing it.
Q: Have you had any works that were especially difficult or fun to destroy?
A: In Changing Lanes, we reproduced a sculpture by Antony Gormley. We made it in Styrofoam that was glazed to look like a matte metal. I remember asking the producer, how am I going to do the proof of destruction? He says, Oh, leave it to me. He had the crane pick up the sculpture and [drop it] from the top of the soundstage all the way to the floor. It exploded in pieces. Then he handed me the video and said, now you can send it to your artist.
I remember sending it to Antony Gormley and then seeing him a few months later and reintroducing myself. He was like, Oh my God! His wife was like, You have no idea. He loves that video; he shows it to people when they come over. Granted, this was 20 years ago, but I was so pleased.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
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