A self-proclaimed movie nerd who takes inspiration from classic Hollywood, the celebrated Argentinian artist uses her work to explore notions of beauty and class in the age of consumerism. As she gears up to release her first feature film, the 32-year-old is reflecting on her journey thus far: one that will soon be immortalised on-screen, as real life meets unique, stylised performance.
Text: Sophie Monks Kaufman Photography: Bess Adler
AN ARTIST
AMALIA ULMAN MAKES NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN life and art. The 32-year-old Argentinian, now Upper East Side royalty, has been on the fine-art scene since she was 15, mining the seam where raw truth meets stylised performance. In her debut feature film, El Planeta, which premiered at Sundance 2021 to rave reviews, a daughter (Leo, full name Leonor) and her mother (María) are played by Amalia and her real mother, Ale. Deceptively light and entertaining, the film tells the bleak economic tale of a pair of grifters in the Spanish seaside town of Gijón. Although they live in high style, they face eviction from their home.
Amalia is a self-identifying film nerd who took inspiration for the slick entertaining tone of El Planeta from Pre-Code Hollywood, the five-year period (1929 - 1934) after the invention of sound but before the introduction of the puritanical Hays Code. “1930s American cinema is full of hustlers and very glamorous, funny characters going through tough times – but always with charm,” she says. “That is missing in contemporary cinema that addresses class.”
The abstract matter of cinephilia may have informed the film’s genre, yet the scenario itself was transposed from a situation that could not be more painfully real. But more on that later.
Amalia’s mum, Ale, was born in the tiny Argentinian city of San Bernardo del Tuyú. “It’s a sort of non-place where people from Buenos Aires go on holiday every year but no one is technically from there,” says Amalia, whose dad was an entrepreneur who ran a skateboarding company from the country’s capital. While visiting one of his outlets, he met Ale, a beautiful girl who was into punk. “Not the best love story. Just a bro looking for a hot girl. My dad wanted a trophy wife. So that’s how they met.” Amalia doesn’t like to talk too much about her dad. “It was a very abusive household. So I don’t know if I want to get into detail.”
In 1989, the year she was born, Argentina fell into a great economic depression. The family moved to her grandfather’s birthplace in northern Spain to start anew. The resulting culture clash went on to inform Amalia’s interest in beauty as perso
