Do you remember the documentary Supersize Me? The one where the film’s director and star Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonalds for a month? Well, now Spurlock is back, curating an art exhibit at the Kimball Art Center dedicated to the Sundance Film Festival. Supersize Me premiered at the festival along with many other projects Spurlock has done. His project this year is called Thirty-Three: Celebrating 33 Years of the Independent Spirit & Sundance Film Festival.
“Sundance creates everlasting art. It’s art that gets into your heart, gets into your soul, it gets into your mind and infects you in a way that you can’t let go, you can’t quit that art. And it has a deep profound affect on you," Spurlock said. "This festival has changed my life. I think the art that has come out of it has changed so many other people’s lives. I wanted this show to represent that cross-cultural, global, personal impact that it has on all of us. I get chills thinking about Sundance. It’s a place that has transformed my life in a way that not many places you can say have.”
As I walked around the gallery, I saw some familiar faces. I saw a painting called Napoleon Napoleon. It’s a punny portrait of Napoleon Dynamite dressed as Napoleon the General. Another piece I saw, called Tarantino, is a sculpture of director Quintin Taranto’s head with a missing ear, which is a reference to his first film Reservoir Dogs that premiered at Sundance in 1992. The exhibit includes 33 different pieces of art that have a connection to the film festival in some way.
“Well for me, the connection is the independent spirit," Spurlock said. "You know, I think that now more than ever, this kind of the independent mind of art and the power of art and what it can say and what it can do, and how it can shape how we look at the world is incredibly important. This matters, and this is important. As we go to work everyday and fight for things everyday, if you’re not fighting for art and the power of art, then what in the world are we fighting for?”
The exhibit will be at the Kimball Art Center in Park City until Feb. 12.
