Friendship and Early Belief
The Powers’ friendships connect artistic conviction with trust, support, and human connection.
The Story
A Life Shaped by Art
John and Kimiko Powers built a life around art and the people who made it. Their relationships reveal a world shaped by curiosity, conviction, and deep human connection.
An intimate record
“What do you see?”— John Powers
Long before Pop Art had a name or a market, John and Kimiko Powers were among the first to believe in it, drawn less to the work as commodity than to the artists themselves.
Confidants to Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, and others, they helped shape an era while remaining, by choice, just outside the spotlight.
Woven from personal archives and never-before-seen conversations with the artists themselves, the film offers an intimate account of two collectors whose relationships with the artists they championed were as important as the works they acquired.
Living with art
Attention as a Way of Life
Their Colorado home made art part of daily experience—a place where works could be encountered repeatedly, questioned, discussed, and shared. The film asks what becomes possible when looking is not a rare occasion, but a practice.
Ideas within the film
Friendship. Looking. Generosity.
Learning to Look
Attention can change an initial response and reveal something unexpected.
Conviction and Taste
Taste grows through encounters, conversation, and the willingness to look again.
Generosity and Legacy
Sharing enjoyment and encouraging someone to see for themselves are lasting forms of generosity.