Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock?

Ex-60 Minutes producer Harry Moses made Who the Fuck Is Jackson Pollock?, a favorite documentary film at festivals in 2006. Like an extended 60 Minutes segment, the film presents all aspects of the drama surrounding San Bernadino resident Teri Horton's ten year crusade to certify that her thrift store art purchase is an authentic Jackson Pollock painting worth $60 million.

The story, hilarious because of Horton's vibrant, spitfire personality, and because of the absurd lengths she has gone to prove skeptical Pollock experts wrong, extends into a larger sociological discussion of art historical fraud. Gathering forensic evidence to battle art critics and collectors, Horton's attempt to buck the system, which requires provenance and a paper trail to qualify artwork, seems lame. Early on, for example, she claims that the painting was made in a bar at ski resort Mt. Baldy, where several movie stars were snowed in and forced to make artwork together culminating in Pollock's signing the painting with his penis. Interviewed, she explains why she's declared war on the established, discriminatory "art world." As the plot thickens, the viewer chuckles at its absurdity, but also sympathizes with this clever woman who, if anything, deserves some payment simply for her dedication to the cause.