The role a Detroit-born artist played in the New York art world of the 1980s is explored in “Make Me Famous,” a scrappy look at the life, influence and struggle of East Village expressionist Edward Brezinski.
Brezinski was a player in the hand-to-mouth, DIY days of the Lower East Side’s art movement of the early ’80s, where Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna were rubbing elbows with artists like Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.
The conditions of life — “everyone was living in garbage,” says one of Brezinski’s contemporaries — are romanticized in director Brian Vincent’s portrait of an artist living on the edge. Brezinski, born and raised in Detroit before making his way to New York, never broke through to the level of some of his peers, and Vincent puts together the pieces of why, arguing for his importance nonetheless.
The colorful detail of the squalor that enveloped the artists and the aesthetic of those punk rock days of early ’80s art is what Vincent brings to life most vividly, as he assembles many of the players who were there frequenting the artist exhibitions and gallery openings, even if those galleries were just the run-down apartments of the artists themselves. Brezinski transformed his own place into a space he called the Magic Gallery, and he wanted nothing more than to blow up and cash in, even as commercial success ran in opposition to the very ethos of the scene in which he moved.
Vincent is less successful following a thread that explores the circumstances surrounding Brezinski’s death, presenting a hook that gives the narrative a gimmicky feel that ultimately peters out. Yes, Brezinski wanted to be celebrated, and the loving, honest “Make Me Famous” makes that case for him, and doesn’t need to rely on stunts to do it.
agraham@detroitnews.com
‘Make Me Famous’
GRADE: B-
Not rated: adult situations
Running time: 92 minutes
7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Cinema Detroit at the Scarab Club, 217 Farnsworth Street, Detroit
Tickets $15
cinemadetroit.org