Manny Farber

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Manny Farber is an American painter and film critic, born in 1917 in Douglas, Arizona. He taught at the University of California San Diego.

In Negative Space, a collection of his film essays, he writes on the virtues of "termite art" and the excesses of "white elephant art." In an essay originally published in 1962, he eloquently champions the B film and under-appreciated auteurs, which he felt were able, termite-like, to burrow into a topic. Bloated, pretentious, white elephant art lacks the economy of expression found in the greatest works of termite art.

"Termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art," Farber contends, "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, like as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."

Further reading

• [Debt]. San Diego Reader. May 25, 2006. Film critic Duncan Shepherd on Farber.

External Links

• [link]. 'The Elephant vs. The Termite'. 2006 UCSD MFA show at the University Art Gallery, title taken from Manny Farber's writings and inspired by his ideas on art.

 

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