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This Is Modern Art : Season 1
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Air date: 06 Jun '99 - 6 episodesThis Is Modern Art was a six-part TV series written and presented by the English art critic Matthew Collings. It was broadcast in 1999 on Channel 4. The series won several awards including a BAFTA. It became popular both because of its sometimes jokey and sometimes thoughtful explanations of the work and attitude of a new wave of artists that had recently been publicized in the British mass media, and because of its author's witty and irreverent, though clearly highly informed, commentary style. Collings went on to create several more TV series and programmes for Channel 4, including Impressionism Revenge of The Nice, Self Portraits The Me Generations and This Is Civilisation.
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List of Episodes (6)
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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1. I Am A Genius
06 Jun '99"I am a Genius" shortlists Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol for the "genius" category. Each of them in his own way changed the definition of what Modern art is, says Collings: "With Picasso it was ugliness instead of beauty. With Pollock it was American instead of European. With Warhol it was irony instead of tortured emotion." This is a good example of Collings' clear and pithy style.
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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2. Shock! Horror!
13 Jun '99"Shock, Horror" opens with Damien Hirst's vitrines of cut-up cows and goes on to an in-depth and welcome discussion of Goya. On to Francis Bacon and back to the Chapman brothers, Picasso's Guernica, Gilbert & George again, Munch's The Scream, Tracey Emin, Vivienne Westwood, Paul McCarthy, Katherine Hamnett, and Vito Acconci.
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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3. Lovely Lovely
20 Jun '99"Lovely, Lovely", examines the idea of beauty: is it still a valid idea in Modern art? Collings goes to town on Matisse, takes a jab at Picasso for parodying one of Matisse's nudes, touches on Mondrian and Morris Louis, lingers a while in America on Jules Olitski and Alex Katz, then on the contemporary Elizabeth Peyton; still in America, goes into some detail on Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jasper Johns; returns to Britain with Chris Offili's paintings decorated with and supported by elephant dung;
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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4. Nothing Matters
27 Jun '99"Nothing Matters" is devoted largely to Minimalism, starting with Martin Creed's roomful of white balloons, followed by Ad Reinhardt's Black paintings; then sculpture by Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Robert Morris; all-white paintings by Robert Ryman; Kasimir Malevich's Black Square of 1913, long pre-dating Minimalism proper; Mark Rothko; Yves Klein; and so on.
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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5. Hollow Laughter
04 Jul '99"Hollow Laughter" is all about Modern art jokes. This should be pretty interesting but it turns out that a lot of the "jokes" are based on text. One artist (Richard Prince) actually built a career out of copying jokes from joke books onto, first, pieces of paper, and then more elaborately onto canvas when the initial venture proved successful. Another (Piero Manzoni) did well financially by putting 30 grams of his own faeces in cans, and labelling and signing them. Sarah Lucas turns up again he
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This Is Modern Art (1999)
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6. The Shock of the Now
11 Jul '99"The Shock of the Now" begins with a feeling of hope. But by now the author himself has doubts and can no longer totally reassure us that all is well in the Modern art department. Could it be indeed that the Modern art "we" have chosen is vacuous or empty? The chapter has lots about Bruce Nauman, good news if you're a fan; some Julian Schnabel, more of Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. Look out for an original and insightful take on Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Sigmar Polke is mentioned bec
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