The mystery of the precocious painter

By Steven Snyder

Given the unsolved mysteries and the still-surging intellectual debates brought to life by Amir Bar-Lev’s rattling documentary “My Kid Could Paint That,” its title seems a little too sure of itself. Some other title, of greater uncertainty, would seem more appropriate — something akin to “Could My Kid Paint That?” or “Should my Kid Paint That?”

For the movie works on three different, fascinating levels. We enter the story at the same point as many national news outlets did in 2004: an art dealer in Binghamton, New York has put on display an exhibition of works crafted by 4-year-old Marla Olmstead. And not just any child’s doodlings, but seemingly-sophisticated, wonderfully-naïve abstract expressions that seem to hint at a surging river of intelligence rippling beneath this child’s cool and calm surface.

The intrigue surrounding the art show and these works starts to attract sizeable crowds to the gallery. Those crowds start to make sizeable purchases as the price tags soar in value. As some paintings start going for $25,000, newspapers and television stations start to pick up the story. And then the bombshell: The New York Times covers the topic, in a big Sunday think-piece, its chief art critic calling into question what this most recent fad says about the value of contemporary art. After all, if a developing child without a fully-developed brain can supposedly create epic artworks, is the art community truly valuing what’s there on the canvas, or merely following one fad after another?

It cuts to the core of what the value of art is: In the idea, in the execution, in the talent or in the perceived quality? It’s such an intriguing concept that the TV news magazine show “60 Minutes” decides to do a profile on young Marla — a scathing expose that ends with a starting revelation. Setting up hidden cameras around the Olmstead home, “60 Minutes” could never catch Marla creating a painting, and as they play clips of this child as she pushes brushes across and dumps paint on the canvas, a child expert calls into question whether the sophisticated artworks hanging on that gallery wall could really be the work of the child seen here.

Implication: These paintings are frauds, created by the parents instead. Result: The art world unleashes its outrage, stops buying Marla’s paintings, and her parents are no longer viewed as pseudo-celebrities, but frauds and liars.

Yet this scandal only propels this film’s debate about artistic value: If these artworks truly matter, should they not matter regardless of who painted them? If a painting is worth $10,000 if a 7-year-old child paints it, then why would the value decrease if a 40-year-old man painted it?

As the wave of stardom erodes into a wave of scandal, and as Marla’s parents break down into fits of despair and anger — most notably the mother breaking down at the realization that she may have destroyed her child’s innocence, and her family’s happiness — “My Kid Could Paint That” becomes a captivating, mesmerizing who-dunnit. And it’s clear that Bar-Lev senses this as well, no longer able to remain objective in the face of a brewing controversy.

He starts pouring over his footage of what he has seen occur in the Olmstead household, just as Marla’s parents look to him for support and confide that he is one of the last people they trust. Bar-Lev sets up his own camera in hopes of catching Marla painting, just as the child’s parents put out a DVD that portends to show the child in action. He surveys the evidence, comparing his footage to that on the DVD, and to the finished works that bear her name.

It’s a riddle and an enigma, with lives hanging in the balance and the legitimacy of an industry at stake. “My Kid Could Paint That” promises to tackle a lofty subject, and proves that it has all the drama, insight and intrigue to launch one heck of a debate.