Marc Quinn is one of the biggest and most influential names in the modern art panorama. He made it big at the turn of the century when he created a scuplutre of his head with his own blood. Years later, he is still going strong and his work is still being exhibited at the greatest of venues - as well as being sold for ridiculously high amounts of money. Yes, in Marc Quinn - Making Waves, we do see the artist at works and a lot of the things that inspire him - which is mostly just about everything. Nevertheless, this is nothing that we haven't seen before - which is also why Gerry Fox is not satisfied with just that. In this documentary, we also see him show his work to potential buyers and friends, and we also see him in his conversations and in the way in which he publicly projects his persona building a brand for himself that after all is an essential part of promoting yourself particularly in a competitive and creative industry.
Gerry Fox is a fly on the wall that squeezes through the crack and delivers a rewarding down to earth representation of the passively mad world surrounding his subject. Nevertheless, he is mostly content with standing to the sides. Despite this, the film features appearences by celebrity buds of Quinn's the likes of Elton John, Lionel Ritchie and the Queen herself!
Many might find faults in the way in which Marc Quinn - Making Waves lacks a drastic resolution, an ending of sorts. There is no grand conclusion or message, there are no final judgements and no shocking revelations. This is a journey after all, and when the journey comes to an end, we realise that the end has no end, and the artist thanks to his ambition, his will to be influential and his wish to be constantly influenced and at once alienated or distanced from the real world reveals that he will keep on making waves - both factually and figuratively, both materially and artistically.
