Docus & Shows Archive
In Our Time: The Museum of Modern Art
What do the superstars of modern art have in common with the Vincent Black Shadow motorcyle? They share the stage at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, also known as MoMA. Produced for Public Television by Great Museums TV.
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Time
How do artists evoke and transform time in their work? Can a work of contemporary art be timeless? How does contemporary art relate to art of the ancient past, to nature, and to the rhythms of the life?
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Prehistoric Europeans - People Who Invented Art
Around 40.000 years ago, Prehistoric Europeans became the first people in the world to invent Art... Painting, sculpture, music... The development of these entirely new concepts had one of the most profound influence on the further intellectual evolution of our ancestors.
The oldest works of prehistoric art in the world, dating to around 40.000 years back in time, were found in the Schwäbische Alb, Germany. The Venus of Hohle Fels. And the figurine of a mammoth discovered in the Vogelherd cave Germany. Further artworks include cave paintings (France and Spain). And the very first musical instrument ever found - a flute (Germany). youtube.com/watch?v=LvhDb4phhzY |
Biography of Paul Cézanne
paul-cezanne.org
Paul Cézanne (US /seɪˈzæn/ or UK /sɨˈzæn/; French: [pɔl sezan]; 1839–1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all." |
Jeff Koons - Beyond Heaven
jeffkoons.com
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums of money, including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. On November 12, 2013, Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York City for $58.4 million, above its high $55 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction. The price topped Koons’s previous record of $33.7 million and the record for the most expensive living artist, held by Gerhard Richter, whose 1968 painting, Domplatz, Mailand, sold for $37.1 million at Sotheby’s in May. Balloon Dog (Orange) was one of the first of the Balloon Dogs to be fabricated, and had been acquired by Greenwich collector Peter Brant in the late 1990s. Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons |
Getting into Cirque du Soleil
cirquedusoleil.com
Ever wondered what it takes to be a part of Cirque du Soleil? Getting to be a one of a kind performer is no small feat. For four months, 16x9 followed Cirque Du Soleil scouts as they scoured the world, searching for the best of the best. youtube.com/watch?v=BLouxprAHtQ |
Consumption
How does contemporary art address the idea of consumption? How do artists question commonly held assumptions about commerce, mass media, and consumer society? The "Art in the Twenty-First Century" documentary “Consumption” explores these questions through the work of the artists Barabra Kruger, Michael Ray Charles, Matthew Barney, Andrea Zittel, and Mel Chin.
pbs.org/art21/films/consumption |
Blue - History of Art
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Raphael - A Mortal God
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael |
Michelangelo - The Genius
Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo |
All in the Mind - The Secret to Drawing
The Secret of Drawing - All in the Mind (BBC Documentary)
Andrew investigates drawing as a primal human instinct and a learned discipline, looking at the earliest cave drawings and the work of David Hockney and Picasso. The programme uses the latest developments in cognitive science to examine why we draw the way we do. youtube.com/watch?v=-7pk9sf7zZU |
Damien Hirst - The First Look
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds. In 1984 he moved to London, where he worked in construction before studying for a BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths college from 1986 to 1989. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995.
Since the late 1980’s, Hirst has used a varied practise of installation, sculpture, painting and drawing to explore the complex relationship between art, life and death. Explaining: “Art’s about life and it can’t really be about anything else … there isn’t anything else,” Hirst’s work investigates and challenges contemporary belief systems, and dissects the tensions and uncertainties at the heart of human experience. damienhirst.com/biography/read-more-about-the-artist |
Pablo Picasso - The Power of Art
Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. Garçon à la pipe sold for US $104 million at Sotheby's on 4 May 2004, establishing a new price record. Dora Maar au Chat sold for US $95.2 million at Sotheby's on 3 May 2006. On 4 May 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie's for $106.5 million. The 1932 work, which depicts Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter reclining and as a bust, was in the personal collection of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died in November 2009. The previous auction record ($104.3 million) was set in February 2010, by Alberto Giacometti's Walking Man I.
As of 2004, Picasso remained the top-ranked artist (based on sales of his works at auctions) according to the Art Market Trends report. More of his paintings have been stolen than any other artist's; the Art Loss Register has 550 of his works listed as missing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso |
Dakar - From Junk to Art
In Dakar, the capital of Senegal for many people improvisation is the key to survival. These amazingly creative people transform old things into new, rubbish into useful items, broken artifacts into beatiful ones.
They really are the masters of recycling. youtube.com/watch?v=6JnEmWPWra4 |
Mark Rothko: The Power of Art
Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970) was an American painter of Russian Jewish descent. He is generally identified as an Abstract Expressionist, although he himself rejected this label and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter." With Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, he is one of the most famous postwar American artists. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko
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Biography of Hokusai
Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾 北斎?, October 31, 1760 (exact date questionable) – May 10, 1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei?, c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai
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The Life & Art of Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (pronounced /ˈlɪktənˌstaɪn/; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the basic premise of pop art through parody. Favoring the comic strip as his main inspiration, Lichtenstein produced hard-edged, precise compositions that documented while it parodied often in a tongue-in-cheek humorous manner. His work was heavily influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book style. He described pop art as "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein
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Ai Weiwei
aiweiwei.com
Ai Weiwei, born on 28 August 1957 in Beijing, China, is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installation, architecture, curating, photography, film, and social, political and cultural criticism. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. As a political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He has investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of so-called "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, following his arrest at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, he was held for 81 days without any official charges being filed; officials alluded to their allegations of "economic crimes". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei |
Filippo Lippi
Fra' Filippo Lippi, O.Carm. (c. 1406 -- 8 October 1469), also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento (15th century).Lippi was born in Florence to Tommaso, a butcher, and his wife. If his birth name was different, it is no longer recorded. Both his parents died when he was still a child. Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, then took charge of the boy. In 1420 he was admitted to the community of Carmelite friars of the Priory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Florence, taking religious vows in the Order the following year, at the age of sixteen. He would have been ordained a priest sometime around 1425, and was to remain in residence in that priory until 1432. In his Lives of the Artists, Vasari says: "Instead of studying, he spent all his time scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others." The prior decided to give him the opportunity to learn painting.
youtube.com/watch?v=H67yogB28-s |
The Most Expensive Paintings in the World
Art critic Alastair Sooke tracks down the ten most expensive paintings to sell at auction, and investigates the stories behind the astronomic prices art can reach. Gaining access to the glittering world of the super-rich, Sooke discovers why the planet's richest people want to spend their millions on art.
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012lsx3 |
The Life & Art of Edward Burra
In this film, the first serious documentary about Edward Burra made for television, leading art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the remarkable story of his life. It follows Burra from his native town of Rye to the jazz clubs of prohibition-era New York, to the war-torn landscapes of the Spanish Civil War and back to England during the Blitz. It shows how Burra's increasingly disturbing and surreal work deepened and matured as he experienced at first hand some of the most tragic events of the century. Through letters and interviews with those who knew him, it paints an entertaining portrait of a true English eccentric. youtube.com/watch?v=4BoLh8xgOdI
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Salvador Dali: A Master of the Modern Era
Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD |
The Life of Francis Bacon
Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon |
Frida Kahlo
Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House. She gave her birth date as July 7, 1910, but her birth certificate shows July 6, 1907; Kahlo had allegedly wanted the year of her birth to coincide with the year of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution so that her life would begin with the birth of modern Mexico. Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo |
New York is Now - 2010
Artist and Whitehot Magazine publisher Noah Becker hosts a fast-paced trip through the contemporary art scene in New York - now. Becker talks with major artists, auction houses, curators and dealers who put forth their views on issues of art world decentralization, the art market climate, and the clash between real and virtual art worlds via social media and the internet.
youtube.com/watch?v=w8Fw_CC0IR4 |
Chuck Close - American Painter & Photographer
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close (born July 5, 1940) is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. Close lives and works on the south shore of Long Island, and New York City's East Village and in Bridgehampton, New York. His first wife was Leslie Rose with whom he has two daughters. They divorced in 2011 and Close is now married to artist Sienna Shields. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Close
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Dubai Art
In May 2006 the international auction house Christies staged its first art auction in Dubai, totalling sales of $ 8.5 million. An auction that went beyond anyone's expectations. Since then all eyes are pointed at Dubai and its extraordinary boom in the international art market. youtube.com/watch?v=XnGQJtrK07Y
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The World's Most Expensive Stolen Paintings
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Andy Warhol: A Master of the Modern Era
Andy Warhol (/ˈwɔrhɒl/;[1] August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol
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The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa
What many to consider the greatest portrait of all time, painted by Leonardo da Vinci from 1503 to 1507, disappeared from the Louvre on August 21, 1911. The theft was a sensational event, and thousands flocked to see the empty space between Titian's "Allegory of Alfonso d'Avalos" and Correggio's "Mystical Marriage" in the Salon Carré. news.discovery.com/history/fingerprints-mona-lisa-peruggia-110819.htm
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