Tag Archives: Contemporary Art

Andreas Gursky on The Art Channel

An artist working in photography, Gursky produces large prints using a digital editing process incorporating multiple images of the same subject. Disrupting conventions of perspective and proportion, his photographs immerse the viewer in the contemporary world of globalisation, architecture, commerce and travel. These pictures resemble the scale of paintings while pulling us into a dizzying experience where apparent ‘photographic’ facts are often invented and manipulated. The power of these artworks lies in the meeting of familiarity and oddity.

Basquiat: Boom For Real at the Barbican on The Art Channel

Jean-Michel Basquiat propelled himself from tagging walls in New York to becoming an artistic prodigy within a short lifespan. Deeply ambitious, he was a self-taught artist who created a whole new language of painting. Basquiat was an exciting and talented artist whose dense paintings compress together the experience of African-Americans with the modern worlds of film, television, sport and music.

James Turrell and Rachel Whiteread at Houghton Hall on The Art Channel

In this film we focus on three works made by James Turrell and Rachel Whiteread at Houghton Hall. Turrell is an artist primarily using artificial and natural light to explore optical sensations and symbolic associations. At Houghton Turrell has installed one of his luminescent ‘Shallow Space Constructions’ and one of his viewing chambers from the ‘Skylight Series’. Whiteread adopts a process of casting to investigate time, function and memory in ordinary objects and structures. She has made a sculpture by casting a hut on the Houghton estate, part of a new series she calls ‘shy sculptures’ for their modest, utilitarian origins.

David Hockney at Tate Britain on The Art Channel Part 2

 

Grace and Joshua conclude their visit to the large retrospective of David Hockney’s art at Tate Britain spanning 60 years. In this second film, we look at a drawing, a collage made from photographs, a painting made in the Yorkshire wolds and a recent iPad drawing. We wrap up the film by thinking about Hockney’s achievement and enduring popularity.

David Hockney at Tate Britain on The Art Channel: Part 1

The Art Channel walks through an exhibition at Tate Britain showing 60 years of art by David Hockney. From his earliest experiments in painting, Hockney develops a naturalism that explores the experience of looking at the world. This first film analyses six key paintings from the first half of his career. Ever curious and observant, Hockney is constantly testing the possibility of art to represent and understand friends, places, objects and architecture. We look closely at several key works to explain Hockney’s legacy and achievement.

Louise Bourgeois and Yayoi Kusama on The Art Channel

The Art Channel visits a curated exhibition of artworks by Louise Bourgeois and Yayoi Kusama addressing the subconscious, memory and trauma. Two of the most significant female artists of the past 75 years, Bourgeois and Kusama battled for recognition and opportunities for artistic self-expression. Experiencing troubled childhoods and family strife, each artist made art to address their fears and to find equilibrium in adult life.

Do Ho Suh at Victoria Miro on The Art Channel

From architectural installations to works on paper, Do Ho Suh explores memory, travel and identity in an exhibition titled ‘Passage/s’. Using brightly coloured and transparent polyester mesh hung on steel frames, Do Ho Suh erects a series of linking architectural ‘hubs’ which resemble disregarded domestic spaces like hallways and entrances. He is also showing new ‘drawings’ produced by melting gelatine models into absorbent paper.