By all accounts, Kingston-based Outsider artist Mark Hogancamp is a shy guy. But Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg’s critically acclaimed 2010 documentary about the World War II-era backyard fantasy world that Hogancamp built and photographed to help himself recover from a traumatic brain injury, has been seen around the world, garnered a slew of film festival awards and turned its subject into a most reluctant celebrity. A chance to hear Hogancamp engage in a public discussion following the film is therefore a rare treat.
This Saturday, March 18 at 1:30 p.m., the Woodstock Artists’ Association and Museum (WAAM) is sponsoring a special screening of Marwencol at Upstate Films Woodstock, as part of its Reel Talk Film Series. A talkback with Hogancamp and his art dealer, Janet Hicks, will follow. Considering that the excuse offered by the five thugs who beat Hogancamp and left him for dead outside a Kingston bar in 2000 was that the artist likes to dress up in women’s shoes, as well as the fact that Hogancamp’s self-therapeutic art project was a response to not having enough health insurance to cover neurological rehabilitation, this movie seems more poignant and relevant than ever in the current political climate.
Tickets to Marwencol cost $12 general admission, $10 for seniors and $8 for students and members of Upstate Films or WAAM. Upstate Films Woodstock is located at 132 Tinker Street. For more information, visit www.woodstockart.org/march-18.
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