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Sunday, May 10, 2020

Art On Demand during the Pandemic #1 - British TV

I've been amazed at how much art has found it way on to television and screens generally during the pandemic - and how much of it is:
  • complete innovation i.e. winging it via the internet
  • videos we never saw on television before
  • the resurrection of art programmes which were really worth repeating
I'm going to try and put together a compilation of what I know about below - starting with the UK TV contribution



Sky Arts


Sky Arts Portrait of the Week


This is possibly one of the most innovative programmes.
  • A past winner of Portrait Artist of the Year painting a model in four hours of live video on Facebook Live
  • People AROUND THE WORLD join in either watching the Facebook Live Video live from their homes or via the 'saved' Facebook Live Video during the week
  • everybody submits their artwork to social media using #MYPAOTW
    • a compilation of portraits of Bernadine Evaristo on Instagram
  • the Judges - Tai Shan Schierenberg, Kathleen Soriano, and Kate Bryan - choose their favourite three each week
I think maybe the value of the series is that we actually see how a sitting progresses from the sitter being quite tense and apprehensive and the artist needing quiet to focus while they get the painting going - to things becoming progressively more relaxed as the four hours unfolds.

PLUS we get to see very many responses from artists all over the world - just plug #MYPAOTW into Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to see what I mean.

PLUS - we get Tai's Top Tips about portraiture and input from Kathleen and Kate about portraiture

Tai's top Tips - this week focuses on measurements of the head and shapes
We've had two episodes so far and the videos are still available online - and third is taking place while I'm writing.
There's one more week and then there will be a compilation show.

My blog post: Portrait Artist of the Week - starts today 10am
Sky Arts: Sky TV's Portrait Artist of the Week announces back-to-back celebrity 'sitters'

This is one of my favourites - somebody who took the video over the week and made a painting out of it.



Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year (also on Now TV app)


This programme has been very popular since it was first broadcast and you can now catch up with past series via Now TV if you don't have Sky.

This bonus is as you wage war on coronavirus from your sofa - you can watch back to back series of Portrait Artist of the Year!

Watercolour Challenge


Series 1 - is back - streaming until end of May 2020

Channel 4

We tend not to make programmes about artists; we commission artists to make programmes about us.

Grayson Perry's Art Club

Grayson and Phil Perry - Kevin the cat is missing from this shot but was prominent in Episode 2

In my opinion, this is a BIG HIT. It vies with portrait artist of the week for the most popular programme of quarantine art on TV. It's really interesting that both are interactive!

It's also secured some major artists to contribute to the series - but I guess it helps if you have access to the address book of Grayson Perry!
To submit your artwork follow this link: https://www.swanfilms.tv/2020/03/enter-your-artwork-here/The series is 6x60.Join in the conversation on twitter and Instagram @Channel4 and make sure you hashtag #C4ArtClub

I liked this one by Miriam Goddard - which never even made it to submission - but that doesn't matter!  Maybe she could submit it again for Episode 4?



BBC - Culture in Quarantine


The BBC has changed the BBC Arts website to Culture in Quarantine for the duration of the current crisis.

 One of the most valuable is Museums in Quarantine
Plus there is Titian: Behind Closed Doors on BBC Two - but very sadly only the audio described version is now available...... (Why can't Channels and the Arts People talk to one another?)


There are a number of special one-off "Get Creative At Home" programmes by different experts
Then there's Bob Ross and the Joy of Painting - very calming, very soothing. My other half was riveted watching him transform the canvas in 30 minutes
Age of the Image is a documentary series in which art historian James Fox explores how the power of images has transformed the modern world.
From the impact of aerial photography on modern art to our ability to peer inside the body and freeze time itself, the first episode is a dizzying journey of visual invention, which makes fascinating connections between the work of artists, film-makers, photographers and scientists.

Revealing Salvador Dali’s debt to Einstein, the groundbreaking trickery of Buster Keaton and shockingly modern fakery of WWI photos, James Fox offers an endlessly surprising, eye-opening look at the beginnings of our image-saturated age
  • Power Games - explores how mass communication and new technology helped 20th-century image-makers transform society, as films, photographs, TV, art and advertising all became weapons in the ideological battles of the age.
  • Seductive Dreams - a journey that takes us from the early days of the Marlboro Man to the radical feminist art of Judy Chicago and the reaction to male-dominated visual culture. Along the way, he celebrates Fellini’s mastery of cinematic fantasy, David Hockney’s subversive visions of male desire and Madonna’s groundbreaking music videos.
  • Fake Views - In an era of easy image manipulation - from Photoshop and green screens to deepfake technology – can we really trust what we see?

There are some old Arts documentaries which seem to be resurrected (and these seem to be a lot easier to find on my iMac than my television)
Documentary that explores the labyrinthine art world of the 21st century and examines both the place of art and artistic passion in our money-driven, consumer-based society.

Featuring collectors, dealers, auctioneers and a rich range of artists, from current market darlings Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter and Njideka Akunyili Crosby to one-time art star Larry Poons, the film exposes deep contradictions as it holds a mirror up to the values of the modern era, coaxing out the dynamics at play in pricing the priceless.
and some newer ones

Plus BBC Radio (or Via BBC Sounds)
Examining the current anxiety epidemic among young people through the unlikely prism of a comforting YouTube archive - Bob Ross’s instructional TV show, The Joy of Painting.
  • BBC Radio 4 Girl with a Pearl Earring (10.45am weekdays next week) - Tracy Chevalier’s much-loved novel about the unknown model in Vermeer’s famous painting, dramatised by Ayeesha Menon.

ITV


....has contributed a big fat zero! I'm not surprised.
on

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