Alfonso Ossorio

Directed by Marianne Schaefer Trench

With Bellamy Bach, Alfonso Ossorio and B. H. Friedman

Paying homage to the blazingly bizarre, boldly sincere life of Alfonso Ossorio (1916–1990), this docushort by Marianne Trench attempts a reflection on his life's work—most notably the 80-acre Long Island estate Ossorio left behind. It is an environment thoroughly extruded with pattern & motif, teeming with sculpture, topiary, bonsai, & works all but defying categorization. Across all its concomitant iterations, Ossorio's multidisciplinary stewardship of the land remains as four decades of evidence testifying to his aesthetic, ecological, & spiritual efforts. Ineffably beautiful & understandably brutal, archetypal powers unfold, revealing the fullness & emptiness of our own reflection—equal parts romantic & stark—leaving us to question how to continue or explain what has been started.