Mary Reid Kelley in "History" - Season 6 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

[ MARY REID KELLEY ] It was a huge 
change to film at EMPAC with any

sort of technological assist you could want.

The film that we did before "You Make Me Iliad," we filmed partly in my parents’ basement and partly in our apartment.

- With a white undershirt and this shirt 
you won’t be able to tell.

- Fancy pants.
- Totally.

So for this film, I invited my sister Alice and Alice’s husband, Micah, and then my youngest sister, Juliet.

- Brainy McBrainyton, Maximilian....

- Max-milian.

- Maximilian Robespierre perfectly 
memorized Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Citizens bored by his hyper-verbosity, shouted 
in unison, merde, sans chapeau!

- Okay, you know Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau was an important music theorist?

- Yes, I know.

- I feel like I should sing this one.

- And you know what, what he did?

Oh yes, yes, please, please sing it. 
Just sing, improvise right now.

- [ laughs ] Sorry.

[ ALICE REID PRUISNER ] We were always very creative 
growing up. And a lot of what we did,

growing up, I kind of see in her art 
now. We would create these elaborate

plays that we would put on that Mary, as the 
oldest of course was always the instigator.

- So try singing your awesome 
little tune with like perfectly

memorized Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Citizens bored.....

- So like there’s a change in tone.
- Okay.

♪ Brainy McBrainy to Maximilian 
Robespierre ♪

♪ perfectly memorized Jean-Jacques Rousseau ♪

♪ Citizens bored by his hyper-verbosity 
shouted in unison, ♪

[ ALL ] Merde! Sans chapeau.

- Alice, show us your 
throat-slashing gesture.

[ grunts ]
- Yeah.

- If I start out higher and circle below.
- There, that’s totally clear.

- Should I bare my teeth? Arrggh.

- Do whatever you want

- While I’m saying, "merde, sans chapeau.'

- That’s good. That looks really 
good.

- I think Alice should go like this.
- Like what?

- Can’t see the actual like throat-cutting, 
it’s just the hand, like this.

- Yeah.

- You think I should 
use my left hand instead?

- One More?
- Yeah.

[ MICAH PRUISNER ] Brainy McBrainyton, Maximilian 
Robespierre perfectly memorized Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Citizens bored by his 
hyper-verbosity shouted in unison...

[ ALL ] Merde! Sans chapeau.

[ JULIET REID ] She has always had an 
interesting part to play in the entire family’s perspectives on life.

When I was in 
junior high, she was bringing home feminist

literature for me to read from college. And 
just giving me new things to think about.

- And I kind of want the 
snow shakers to be up high.

- High? Like this?

- Like still on the 
screen, but high.

- Are we recording?
- Yeah.

- Jelly tart, jelly tart, General Bonaparte.

Sentimentality worried all France.

He cried, saccharine tears on the banks of the Volga 
while Waterloo waterworks spotted his pants.

- This is going to be a tricky 
time for you guys

cause you’re going to have to put it
together and yell, "100 Voltaires."

We'll get you to scoot...

- And actually I suggest that we need to 
start bringing our hands together to do the

Jacob’s Ladder before, so that when they, when it 
comes together, it’s, bing "100 Voltaires."

[ MICAH ] I’m an engineer. So 
I have little to no background in art.

And therefore when I see Mary’s artwork, it, it is always so different from what I normally encounter

that it 
makes me think a lot harder about it.

- I think we'll be okay.

- So we’re not using 
audio for this. So just...

- Ready to go?

- Yeah, I think, I think I am.

- Mary, could...since we’re not 
doing audio, can you be like "and stop"?

- Yeah.
- Okay.

- Okay, I'll just
- Just hiss or something so you don't have to move your mouth.

[ crosstalk ]
- Okay, yeah. Okay.

[ ALL ] Twinkle toe, twinkle toe, Dennis P. Diderot. 
Dreamed of a government led by his heirs.

Nightmares so ghastly, so anti-Enlightenment 
gave him the shock of 100 Voltaires.

[ PATRICK KELLEY ] Mary came across this map. 
It’s this old map of Paris, pre-Haussmann

renovation of Paris. The design of this map is an 
inspiration for making some of the buildings.

What we thought we would do is try to recreate some 
of the architecture that you see in this map,

this sort of cartoon-like etching hatch-marking 
architecture as three-dimensional models

so that we would have these objects 
as possible virtual set elements.

[ REID KELLEY ] It’s so wild that they 
had electricity to do this.

- That's the actual Haussmann time?

- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

He wouldn’t put electricity 
on the streets, he wanted gas on the streets,

cause he thought it was more 
aesthetic.

But here, you want to see it?

And here you can see the texture of 
the street. It’s like a cobblestone.

- Well yeah, we have that...

[ REID KELLEY ] I think that one of the reasons that 
I’m motivated to do research and to do all the

reading is that it’s very much a set of values 
that learning is good. Books are good.

Things in books will help you.

Who knows where it came 
from? Probably in large part from my parents.

I grew up in South Carolina. I’m the eldest 
of four children.

My next sister is Alice, and then my brother Dan. And 
then my youngest sister, Juliet.

My parents met doing their master’s in 
history.

My mom and dad or notorious for never just driving by a historical marker, we always pull over to see what it is.

In the South, at least in terms of the Civil 
War, there’s this historical burden.

You’re aware pretty early on that there isn’t just one version 
that’s accepted,

that people are kind of tugging at this historical record,

you know wanting 
to manipulate the history, one way or another.

- Okay, that’s good. This shot is really quick. 
It’s just a couple seconds.

So run out, put the chairs down. I’ll put the board 
on. Hop on it, start doing this and kind

of kicking my heels. And then I want both 
of you to kind of like lean over the chair.

[ REID KELLEY ] The director role is not something 
that comes super naturally.

I think that’s one of the reasons I really 
value getting to work with my family members,

it makes it easier for me to ask for what I want.

- Okay, good. Now, now when you do 
that, like jostle each other like.....

- Yeah, like, here, I want the better view, [ laughs ]
- I want the better view.

- No, no, I want to get it.
- Okay.

[ laughs ]

- Excellent, we got it. Yep.

- Step back and 
lay back down so I should see when...

[ REID KELLEY ] The entire concept comes out 
of the research and out of the reading.

- See, 'cause I don't have a pillow, it’s 
going to make it a lot harder.
- Yeah.

[ REID KELLEY ] And it’s my choice of what we do.

- So I think you’re going to 
have to bring it around to the side.

[ REID KELLEY ] And then once we’re kind of
on the way.....

My husband Pat, is very enthusiastic to just 
pick up whatever is happening and run with it.

- Do we want to be straight down?

- Uh, yeah.

- Is that about like this? Eric would it be 
crazy for me to shoot from that gap right there?

- No, not at all.

[ REID KELLEY ] I never would have made that big 
leap from being a painter to something as,

as complicated and as technically 
involved as, as this work without Pat.

- Secretly, secretly Queen Marie Antoinette 
studied her algebra all night in bed.

Scholars remarked that the mathematician her beauty 
resolved to make knowledge widespread.

- That was it, yeah. That was great.
- Okay.

- Awesome.

- Okay.

Secretly, secretly Queen Marie Antoinette 
studied her algebra all night in bed.

Scholars remarked that the mathematician her beauty 
resolved to make knowledge widespread.

- After we shoot this and we’ll 
shoot that. And then we have a break.

Then you guys are just going to have to hang 
out, maybe eat another piece of pizza

while I get into Sisyphus.

And then we’ve got a 
couple more larger, wider shots. So.....

- We have the baguettes, right?
[ overlapping chatter ]
- Oh, yes, and the baguettes.

- I baguette you.

- Yes, the dandy outfits, 
yeah. So we’re doing good, but we got a lot more to go.

So... [ sighs ] So stay down.

[ REID KELLEY ] I love to put on makeup. 
That’s one of my favorite parts of,

of making the work, is getting 
to, to draw the face on.

My mother never wore makeup and 
I was always obsessed with it.

The eyes block out everything.

When I look out of the eyes, I see very little, which is great.

And it’s, it’s helped me do the performance. And I don’t think I could have started performing without them.

- About in the right spot?
- Mm-hmm, looks great.

- Okay.

[JULIET ] What exactly is the 
title? This syph....

[ ALICE ] Okay, I always...Sis

[JULIET ] Sisyphus, that’s right? Sisyphus.

[ MICAH ] I’m guessing partially because 
it actually rhymes with syphilis.

- Syph...Syph...

- The Syphilis of 
Sisyphus.

- No, is that right? [ chuckles ]

[ REID KELLEY ] The title of the new 
film is "The Syphilis of Sisyphus."

Most of the, the text from this film is just kind of the extended polemical musings of this woman,

this female character, Sisyphus.
She’s a prostitute.

At the beginning we 
kind of see her getting ready to go out

and she’s doing her toilet 
and putting on her makeup.

- So now remember when she starts,
she’s like not mad.

- Right.
- She’s, she’s almost sad.

But she’s bitter. She’s not like sweetly sad. She’s 
not like resigned sad, she’s bitter sad.

- Pouting sad.
- Face right.

- I can actually see my reflection 
in the camera, it’s kind of helpful.

- Yeah.
[ indistinct speech ]

- That’s so Magritte. I didn’t
even think of that till just now.

- [ laughs ] It is.

- It’s like Crazy Kat meets Magritte.

Nature sold me a lie. And I’ve kept the deceit 
on my face to remind me, her falsehoods repeat

like the seasons renew. Same advice every time 
because nature can counsel me, nothing but crime.

[ REID KELLEY ] One of the things that I love about encountering 
paintings is looking at them over time and coming

back and, and viewing it again. So when I 
make video works I love the idea of people

coming back to them and seeing them over 
and over.

And always get something new.

Her utopian swindles profess to be cures, but 
in fact generations

while smeared with manure as a young naïve milkmaid in apron and braids,

I too was revolting on top of the barricades.
Praising the rustic I fell to gourmet

and my radical urges
were lost due to negligee.

Shamed by this lapse into luxuries error, I hid 
my defections till this happy mirror

revealed a new cause for which Sisyphus shoulders the 
burdens of charm crying: Make Beauty Boulder.