Your Friday night plans just got a lot more interesting. As part of its Cinema Orange series, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) will screen BEAUTY AND RUIN this Friday at 7 p.m. Tickets to the screening are free and available at the door.
BEAUTY AND RUIN, directed by Marc de Guerre, explores art in a city overrun by artlessness: Detroit.
Here’s the synopsis …
In 2013, after a half-century of wrenching decline, the city of Detroit went bankrupt, and a massive fight over whether these masterpieces should be sold to pay down the city’s debt began. With the city owing 18.5 billion dollars, the Detroit Institute of Art is the single-largest asset the city owns outright. The Detroit Institute of Arts is one of America’s great art museums, housing a staggering collection of European masterpieces, including priceless paintings from Titian, Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Bellini, Brueghel, and Fra Angelico and dozens of others.
When it’s revealed pensions of retired city workers are at risk in the bankruptcy, the fight over the city-owned paintings lays bare the unhealed and unresolved issues of racial division at the heart of a broken Detroit. It also begs the question: Does art matter to a city on the verge of extinction? BEAUTY AND RUIN follows the fight over the artwork in the Detroit Institute of Art as Detroit faces bankruptcy. The city retirees face losing their pensions, the creditors want the art sold and the museum wants to keep this important cultural treasure safe for future generations. What is the price of culture?
With unique access to the Detroit Institute of Arts and all the principal players in the bankruptcy, BEAUTY AND RUIN is the riveting story of the history of an astonishing art museum in the context of a failing city, and the definitive behind the scenes look at the crisis that stands to destroy it.
What is the price of culture?
Learn more about this free event here.
