Confronting her imminent death, New Museum founder Marcia Tucker looks back at her life making space for groundbreaking art and traditionally-excluded artists. As we learn what made her a bad girl in the eyes of so many, Marcia never stops questioning: who is art for, what purpose does it serve?
SYNOPSIS
Marcia Tucker is best known for starting the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City in 1977. But there is so much more to this feminist iconoclast’s story. In the first film ever made about Marcia’s life and legacy, "Bad Girl Marcia Tucker" demands that we consider how the artworld reflects our world more broadly.
The title of the film takes its name from Marcia’s transgressive 1994 exhibition, “Bad Girls”, which featured artists confronting gender, race, class, and age issues head-on – all while subverting what it meant to be “bad”. Though at the time, the show and Marcia herself were heavily criticized, today we see just how prescient she was in her steadfast vision to break down systemic barriers and build up a multitude of voices.
“Bad Girl Marcia Tucker” interweaves Marcia’s words with the people, places, and circumstances that shaped her, creating a textured collage of the different stages of her life. It wasn’t just her bold haircuts and wardrobes that evolved. Over time, she constantly developed, deepened, and reformulated her subversive ideas.
Almost twenty-years after her death, “Bad Girl Marcia Tucker” calls on us to re-examine Marcia’s trailblazing ideas, both inside and outside gallery walls.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Simone Estrin
Simone Estrin (she/ her) is a Toronto-based filmmaker, programmer, and curator whose work questions the experience of art and its value for society. Her short film, “A Shift in the Landscape”, follows the battle to protect Richard Serra's sculpture, "Shift”, which has sat hidden in an Ontario farming field for over fifty years and is now threatened by housing development. The film, which features an interview with Serra himself, has screened internationally, including at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Festival international du Films sur l’Art in Montreal, and most recently, in February 2024, at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa. “Bad Girl Marcia Tucker” is Simone’s feature debut. With both the role of the artist and the place of the audience top of her mind, Simone’s films aim to contribute to larger conversations that ask us to confront our preconceived notions about contemporary art and its relationship to everyday life.
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Women Make Movies (WMM), Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State and accepts charitable donations on behalf of this project. Your donation will be spent by the filmmaker(s) toward the production and completion of this media project. No services or goods are provided by Women Make Movies, the filmmaker(s) or anyone else associated with this project in exchange for your charitable donation.
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