Peter Booth "Film Star" for Auction, from the Short Film Setting the Art World Alight, Possession(s) Starring Laurence Fuller

Los Angeles, CA, November 23, 2009 --(PR.com)-- A major painting by Peter Booth, one of Australia’s most important contemporary artists, to be offered at the November Deutscher and Hackett Important Fine Art Auction, was the subject of a short film starring Max Cullen, Asher Keddie and Laurence Fuller, titled Possession(s). Cullen and Keddie, both starring in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, teamed up with Fuller, producer Trilby Beresford and director Jim Lounsbury to create "A powerful short film that explores the nature of desire, obsession and possession." - Film INK

For a link to the film trailer: http://www.laurencefuller.com/Possession.html

The film will be showing at the auction preview exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne along with the painting, which depicts a man in the snow with a bandaged head. Originally shown about four years ago at Rex Irwin’s gallery in Sydney, the painting was snapped up by Fuller, who “had to own it.”

It was the sensation of that overwhelming desire which Fuller wanted to investigate in film. Or rather, what happens when a desire becomes an obsession, and what people are capable of doing to possess something (or someone).

Following a cold-call to film director, Jim Lounsbury, and meetings with producer/actor Trilby Beresford, daughter of Bruce Beresford, a team was assembled and the film was made.

In the arena of Australian Art, Peter Booth is incredibly highly regarded. One of the few Australian artists represented in the three major New York collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, Booth is widely considered to be the most important contemporary artist working in Australia today.

Although in the opening scene of the film, the Peter Booth painting is attacked by an obsessed character, Deutscher and Hackett executive director Damian Hackett assures that “no paintings were harmed in the making of the film, Possession(s)!” He adds, “Although it did make my heart skip a beat to see it appearing to be slashed with a knife in the film. Good thing the Booth painting had a stunt double!”

From his early, dark, minimalist abstractions with which he gained initial notoriety in the groundbreaking exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968, through to his more recent figurative expressions, Peter Booth creates powerful and challenging images which are keenly sought and tightly held by collectors and major institutions.

Painting (Man with Bandaged Head) 2004, the Peter Booth on offer, will have an estimate of $80,000 – 120,000 when auctioned on 25 November 2009 at Deutscher and Hackett, 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra, Victoria.

For a link to the auction catalog: http://www.deutscherandhackett.com/catalogue12/lot_number13.html

For a link to the film trailer: http://www.laurencefuller.com/Possession.html

For further information, images or interviews, please contact :
Damian Hackett, Executive Director, Sydney, Deutscher and Hackett, tel. 02 9287 0600.

Deutscher and Hackett
Important Australian + International Fine Art Auction
Melbourne * Wednesday 25 November * 7pm

http://www.laurencefuller.com/Possession.html

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