A film with its own art curator? ‘Inside’ a heist film’s attempt to ‘legalize’

Most films set in the art world do not have a curator. Commissioned by Vasilis Katsoupis ‘Inside’ – and to start original contemporary work.

Set entirely in a New York penthouse, the film follows an art thief named Nemo (Willem Dafoe) who arrives to steal a collection of paintings by Egon Schiele. When the burglary goes wrong, Nemo is trapped with the paintings, sculptures and installations the unseen owner has collected. Forced to survive in the inhospitable apartment, Nemo deals with the chores – and uses some of them to keep himself alive.

To create the collection, Katsoupis collaborated with Italian art curator Leonardo Bigazzi. Some of the works appear in Ben Hopkins’ script for the film, while others have been commissioned or loaned by artists and galleries.

“There was a very clear vision of the goal… some jobs had to be done,” explains Bigazzi. “From the mundane aspect of a pointed metal sculpture that can be used to open up the basement to more complex elements of the story.”

“I had an idea in mind for the collection, but I needed an expert to make it legal,” adds Katsoupis. “We have seen too many movies that are about art and more often than not the art is fake or bogus. I really wanted everything in my film to be very, very accurate.”

Dozens of recent works populate the penthouse, including works by Francesco Clemente, Maurizio Cattelan, John Armleder, Alvaro Urbano, Maxwell Alexandre, David Horvitz, and Joanna Piotrowska. Here, Katsoupis and Bigazzi explain the intent behind six of the most memorable.

Francesco Clemente, “After and before” (2021)

Several works of art appear exclusively in Inside. For one of them, Bigazzi approached Italian painter Francesco Clemente for an original commission, influenced by an existing work, Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.

“Everyone knows it’s in the MOMA collection, so it would be impossible for our collector to own this artwork,” says Katsoupis. “For me this is art [about] this character who is alone in this area and feels vulnerable because Christina cannot move. We asked Francesco to take inspiration from that and make his own decision.”

“’Christina’s World’ is not a landscape with a woman; It really is a psychological portrait of the impossibility of achieving something unattainable,” adds Bigazzi. “The part that work played in the script was this idea of ​​Willem looking at this painting and imagining the possibility of helping this woman as much if he is eager to reach the outside world. The Clemente style is a very recognizable watercolor style. It is a work that any art connoisseur or professional will immediately recognize.”

Petrit Halilaj, ‘Do you know that there is a rainbow, even if it is night!?’ (2020)

Dubbed “The Moth” by the filmmakers, “Do you see there’s a rainbow, even though it’s night!?”, is a sequel by the Kosovar artist Petrit Halilajs Series for the Venice Biennale in 2017. Bigazzi commissioned the piece to be installed on the wall of the penthouse especially for Inside, and when Dafoe toured the art on set with Katsoupi, he decided to dress it up as a costume.

“He said, ‘I’m getting cold. Why don’t I wear it?'” Bigazzi recalls. “And it became one of the most iconic images in the movie where he wears this moth and almost becomes a shaman.”

Maurizio Cattelan, “Untitled” (1999)

The print of Maurizio Cattelan’s work, also known as “A Perfect Day”, shows an installation in Milan’s Galleria Massimo de Carlo, where the artist pasted his gallery owner to the wall. It was Cattelan’s first time using duct tape (he recently taped a banana to a wall at Art Basel) and his aim was to reverse the power dynamic in the gallery world.

“For me, this job was perfect because Nemo is in a situation where he has to steal and he ends up in jail,” says Bigazzi. “This idea of ​​power structure and control is inverted.”

Later in the movie, Nemo destroys the unwritten imprint.

“Because they are shot chronologically, Willem had a lot of time on set to negotiate his relationship with the works,” Bigazzi recalls. “From the beginning, we negotiated that any damage to the work had to be for the survival of the character, whether it be physical or psychological. I called Maurizio to ask him and he was very enthusiastic.”

“It happened a lot in the movie,” adds Katsoupis. “You had these artworks that breathe new life into the movie, even though it wasn’t in the script. It happened naturally during filming.”

Breda Beban, “I can’t love you for me” (2003)

Serbian video artist Breda Beban, who died in 2012, was Katsoupi’s teacher and mentor during his MFA in film arts in England, and the filmmaker wanted to honor her in his film. Two of Beban’s works appear in Inside: a small inkjet print titled Arte Vivo (No. 8) and an eight-minute two-screen video installation, I Can’t Love You for Me.

“In the script it’s simple: it’s a form of entertainment for him,” Katsoupi says of the video work. “It’s like a little movie theater. It’s the only piece of art with dialogue and some movement. There are no channels on the TV – everything except these screens has been destroyed.”

“The work is about a couple sharing the same cinematic space,” explains Bigazzi. “They understand they’re in the same room and at the same table, but because they’re on two different screens, it’s like they’ve never met. [each other]. This is a love that cannot happen. There is a similar impossibility of connection between the character of William and the woman [he watches] on video surveillance. It also becomes a discourse on metacinema: although the audience is in the same exchange with Nemo, [they] will never reach the level of being there with him, in the house, locked up.”

Joanna Piotrowska, Untitled Series (2015-2017)

A few years ago, Polish artist Joanna Piotrowska asked friends around the world to build shelters in their homes from items lying around. The result was a series of images of emergency shelters. The works reflect what Katsoupis envisioned Nemo to eventually build in the penthouse.

“It’s about the idea of ​​building your own precarious sanctuary within the domestic environment with the illusion that it’s something that protects you, but is actually extremely vulnerable,” says Bigazzi. “Joanna’s photos show up in the beginning when the house is all pristine and perfect, and then it’s almost like the hideout materializes in space later in the movie.”

Nemo’s towering sculptural hideout, built on set by production designer Thorsten Sabel, was created using furniture and real art.

“It looks like an art installation,” Katsoupis notes.

David Horvitz, “All the time that shall come after this moment” (2019)

A neon light sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist David Horvitz hangs prominently in the collector’s home. In the first half of the film, the nine words of the image are perfectly exposed. Later, after the water has flowed down the walls, only three remain: “after this moment”.

“The magic of the film is in the water [came in] half the sentence off. It wasn’t intentional — it happened on set,” says Katsoupis.

“It really becomes a perfect statement of generative possibilities when you put art in a different context,” adds Bigazzi. “In the film, everything is really different after that moment because there is water on the floor. The fact that it happened by accident shows that certain things, when activated in a certain way, take on a life of their own.”