Westermann
with composer Tomeka Reid in personThis immersive documentary offers a hopeful, humorous look at the artist H.C. Westermann, a WWII veteran who channeled his experience into his work.
H.C. (Cliff) Westermann, born in Los Angeles in 1922, led a life that reads like the plot of a great American novel. As a young man, he worked in logging camps in the Pacific Northwest, witnessed kamikaze attacks as a Marine gunner in WWII and toured Asia as a performing acrobat with the USO before enrolling at the School of the Art Institute under the GI Bill. Westermann had a Zelig-like tendency to find himself aligned with significant moments and figures in 20th-century history: he sold his first sculpture to the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1957. In 1967, he was among the crowd pictured on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. In 1968, while in residence at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, Westermann quickly became a beloved figure in the flourishing art scene, where he was friend and mentor to artists like Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston and Ken Price.
Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea is an immersive documentary exploration of the beguiling, surreal artworks he made to process the horrors he witnessed on the front lines. The film reveals ways in which Westermann protected his empathic spirit—and sanity—by 'sculpting' his body, artworks, friendships and his hand-hewn house. Themes of resiliency, hope, and humor emerge from Westermann's art-filled letters to family and friends, voiced by Ed Harris, and from a beautifully composed score by Tomeka Reid, a current guest lecturer and resident artist at Dartmouth.
D: Leslie Buchbinder, US, 2023, 1h26m
Discussion follows with Tomeka Reid, who composed the score for the film.
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