(Filmmaker in person)

Like Roosevelt Bassett, Thornton Dial is a “self-taught” artist. But the recognition of his extraordinary and prolific output in the medium of assemblage has been very different. Is he one of America’s greatest folk artists or simply one of its greatest artists? Bill Arnett, a white Southerner with an obsession for discovering and promoting African-American artists from the rural South, is of the latter persuasion as he befriends and champions Dial in a rollercoaster ride through the theme park of the New York art world. Mr. Dial is a fitting companion to a film from last year’s Festival, Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, in what it has to say about that world and its sometimes transitory allegiance to the ones who make the art.

(2007, 56 min.) – G.R.