Forget all the standard art forms: don’t paint pictures, don’t make poetry, don’t build architecture, don’t arrange dances, don’t write plays, don’t compose music, don’t make movies. And above all, don’t think you’ll get a happening by putting all these together. […] The point is to create something new.
Television interviewer Barbaralee Diamonstein talks to renowned American photorealist Chuck Close, whose paintings eschew ‘elegant or meaningful or powerful art marks’ in favour of a rational system of incremental marks and colour.
In this archive interview, Close speaks openly and in detail about his work and process, revealing his unique sensibility, vision and adeptness to hold several apparently contradictory ideas in harmony.
You can browse the collection of artist interviews from ‘Inside New York’s Art World’ here.
Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry as his female alter ego Claire
Grayson Perry, winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, delivers the annual BBC Reith Lectures — the first ever by a visual artist. In four fascinating talks, the self-described ‘Essex transvestite potter’, (known for his ceramic works, printmaking, drawing, sculpture and tapestry) explores the role of art in society, the limits of contemporary art and the idea of how we judge quality.
Dip into audio, transcripts and video clips of Playing to the Gallery on The Reith Lectures site, or listen to all four lectures available on SoundCloud below.
In his opening Reith Lecture, Grayson Perry reflects on the idea of quality and examines who and what defines what we see and value as art. Recorded at Tate Modern, London.
In the second lecture, delivered at St George’s Hall in Liverpool, the artist analyses the common tests of a piece of art — from commercial worth to public popularity to aesthetic value.
In his final lecture, Perry discusses his life in the art world: the journey from the unconscious child playing with paint, to the award-winning successful artist of today. Recorded at Central St Martins School of Art, London.
Early examples of computer-generated art and experimental video by multimedia artist Doris Totten Chase below.
Doris Chase, excerpt from Circles I, 1969–1970, in collaboration with programmers and computer engineers at The Boeing Company. Computer film based on spinning hoops.
Doris Chase, excerpt from Circles II, 1972. Colour separated telerecording of film footage to come out of a 1968 collaboration between the artist and the choreographer and dancer Mary Staton.
Doris Chase, excerpt from Jazz Dance, 1975. Film combining computer-generated outlines of rhythmic dance movements and oscilloscope patterns of music. In the mid-1970s, Chase was creating groundbreaking work at the intersection of video, dance and computer-generated imagery — achieving a ‘hypnotic and strongly rhythmic synthesis’.
You can watch eight video clips from her oeuvre, which includes over 50 films, here.
Bill Viola, a pioneer in video art, concluded an artist residency at MIT, in 2009, with a thoughtful conversation about profound changes to sense perception and tactile experience brought about by technology.
In the above video, he talks about new research in computational photography, tangible media and ‘hyperinstrument environments’ which augment and mediate human experience at the edge between physical and virtual.
Fischli/Weiss, The Point of Least Resistance (Der Geringste Widerstand), 1980 Colour Super 8 film enlarged to 16mm 30 minutes, sound Peter Fischli and David Weiss dressed in furry brown rat and panda bear costume are roaming around Los Angeles on a quest for art success.
Fischli/Weiss, The Right Way (Der Rechte Weg), 1982 Colour Super 8 film 32 minutes, sound Rat and bear are trekking across remote countryside in an attempt to rationalise experience of the natural world.
Fischli/Weiss, Fasion Show from The Sausage Series (Wurstserie), 1979 Chromogenic print 50cm x 70cm
Fischli/Weiss, Herr and Frau Einstein shortly after the conception of their son, the genius Albert, 1981, from Suddenly this Overview, 1981/2006 Unfired clay
Fischli/Weiss, The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Dinge), 1987 Colour 16mm film 30 minutes, sound Household objects laid out on a warehouse floor collide in absurd and unexpected ways.
The art duo's memorable capers are a joy to watch. The Right Way and The Way Things Go frame seemingly banal collisions between artist and everyday life with child-like wonderment that is disarming and touching.
To pay tribute to the art critic Robert Hughes (1938–2012), the BBC recently broadcast The Shock of the New — the outstanding 1980 documentary TV series in which Hughes reappraises modern art, architecture and design within a social and historical context.
At best, Hughes’ droll and rather pugnacious manner of speaking is entertaining; the imaginatively themed episodes, however, are stimulating and educational.
Alejandro Guijarro visits leading quantum mechanics departments to photograph lecture hall blackboards.
Momentum — an exhibition of large-format photographs taken since 2010 — is startlingly poetic: mathematical equations in states of metaphysical unrest; incidental notations transfigured with minimum intervention. No prizes for guessing that I’m excited.
Sizzling with authorial wit, Harland Miller’s paintings show him to be a playful artist possessing a writer’s love of text. He has said, “Painting is the worst medium to express narrative, but perhaps the best to hit a nerve”.
Next Life’s on Me is a continuation of Miller’s irreverent reinterpretation of Penguin classic editions.
Also showing: Overcoming Optimism is a selected survey of Miller’s work and consists of many paintings from the artist’s Penguin series (including ‘Born to Get it in The Tits Every Single Day Though’, 2012, pictured above) across several years. The show is currently at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh and runs until .
Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez‘s (‘Dr Lakra’) artwork draws on legendary Mexican artists such as José Posada and Northern European artists such as Bosch, James Ensor and Goya.
His fourth solo show at Kate MacGarry consists of his signature readymades and a wide range of artist books made over the last twenty years: books of erotica with figures tattooed in ink by the artist, sketchbooks, sourcebooks for tattoos, collaged antique books and reproductions of rare and unusual record covers.
OM (1986) is a playful short film by UK avant-garde filmmaker John Smith.
The film is an edifying journey, which skillfully (mis-)leads viewers from one concrete stereotype to its diametric opposition. The outcome is stunningly simple!
