ARTiculation - For the Love of Art The Culture Show

Could all the speakers please come up? All these teenagers have one

thing in common, they're passionate about art. Over the last few months,

they've been battling it out in a nationwide competition designed to

find the sixth former who can speak most eloquently about a work of art.

Tease are two mics that we will hook you up to. Are you happy with your

time figures I think mine is about -- Are you happy with your timings?

I think mine is about eight minutes. The teenagers come from very

different backgrounds, go to private and state schools, but they've all

been thinking deeply about what art is and why it matters. What makes an

object a piece of art and how do we perceive art work? Art can be a

measuring contest who breaks the most rules. Only one winner from

each the nine regional heats will make it to the finals. His left hand

up here strangles... Sorry. You can imagine the impact it would have is

outstanding. This isn't art history A-level on stage. That's not the

brief. There are definite values and principles adopted here that show

the style. The sweeping movement and vibrant colours give the wonderful

image of dancing and laughter reminiscent of the 1940s nightclub.

This is then Juxtaposed to her up wardly thrust arm. This is about the

value of a person and that work of art, that electricity between them

in public. That's bloody brilliant. I can't wait.

Today is the final of ARTiculation 2014, nine brilliant teenagers have

made it this far. Each has been on fairly remarkable journey in the

past few months. They've chosen surprising art. Each has won a

regional heat with a stellar performance. Last year, I was a

judge. This year, I get to watch, which frankly, I'm relieved about,

because it's going to be very tough indeed to pick a winner. The judge

of this year's final is the best selling author and internationalally

renowned artist. Earlier this month, I went to his studio. ? What is the

poipt then of talking -- point of talking about art,if you like,

that's a horribly big question. I'm an artist and I write about other

people's art. I do feel very strongly that there are real

passionate reasons why it's worth spending time looking at something

hard and turning it into words. The first thing is the time thing. It

slows you down. It actually makes you look again, again, again, again

and return to a work of art. The other reason for writing about art

is to say to the person next to you, bloody hell, bloock look at that,

this is me on this, can you enjoy this? To trianning late on why --

triangulat E.On why it matters. It's about getting kids to actually stand

up and talk with passion, authority about what they care about.

Before the times get started, let's look at the journeys that some of

the competitors have been on. Four weeks ago, the Birmingham regional

heat took place at the Icon Gallery. Eight students competed for a place

in the final. I'm from Handsworth in Birmingham. I'm in lower sixth. I

study art, politics, geography and history. On the day of the regional

heat, I was sixth, so I'd heard five of the presentations and they were

brilliant. They were really high standard. The art work I chose was a

sculpture. I chose it because the atmosphere is really haunting. The

blood on the man's hand unnerves the viewer. The penetrating, beady eyes

of the sheep creates a haunting atmosphere.

I had real difficulty choosing a piece of art work. I haven't had the

ability to visit exhibitions in London and things. So I wasn't

expecting to win or anything. I didn't go in there thinking, "Yeah,

I'm going to win this." In first place Harjutment Harjut. I said to

text me when she finished. She said she was coming home on the bus. I

thought it was bad news and that she didn't want to deliver it while on

the bus with complete strangers. I waited tensely at home thinking,

what am I going to say to her? Next thing I know, the door bell rings

and both of them walk in at the same time screaming and yelling, saying,

"Mum, I won!" I was really proud. My family are really supportive,

especially through this sort of thing, they have pushed me to think

about things differently. It's good because I can have conversations

with them. Do you want to win an art competition when you're older? No.

Engineering competition. You want to be an engineer, don't you? What

about winning? Is she going to win? No, no, it's not about winning.

She'll be fine. I'm really excited to see the other candidates, though.

The second London heat was at the Whitechapel gallery where two

contestants faced their worst nightmare when they discovered they

were talking about the same artist. I'm the second person doing a

presentation on a work by the same architect. Else who has done the

same architect as me. It's a little bit scary. My name is Anna. I've

been interested in architecture for several years and have chosen to

speak about a building called Final Wooden House. She opened with her

description of the thing I'm talking about and said some things that are

reasonably similar to things that I said. Within the house, there are no

separations between floor, wall and ceiling. When you step onto a

surface that one thought was a floor, it could immediately turn

into a table or a chair or anything that is flat. I'm also going to talk

to you about Sue Fujimoto. APPLAUSE

I don't know what it is about Fujimoto, but he has got everybody

going this afternoon. However, the first prize goes to Anna.

APPLAUSE I'm really happy. Yeah, I haven't

really won anything like this before. Everyone was really good.

She deserved to win as well. My name's Anna. I'm 16. I live with

my mum, my dad and my dog, Stanley. It was terribly exciting and

actually quite overwhelming to see my daughter up there. When you

think, only a few years ago, I was holing her hand to cross the road.

My dad is really interested in buildings and so we've always gone

to look at interesting buildings, ever since I was little. Our house

was a self--build house. It was built by mier parents and -- by my

parents and our neighbours. When we first started this as a Co-op group

and things that this was going to be our house. It's really cool. I don't

know anyone else who has a self-build house. That links to why

I'm so interested in buildings and architecture, I think. Our third

finalist lives close to some of London's biggest museums and

galleries. I will give you a brief tour of my room. I have my music

stand, where I practise the flute. I have my picture frame wall paper.

This is probably the part of my room that's most like me. I have loads of

post cards on the wall from various exhibitions I've been to. I'm

Madeleine and I'm doing my second year of A-levels at St Paul's girls

school. I think talking about art is really important, but at the same

time, really difficult, because people are quite reluctant to have

any opinion about art that they haven't read or that someone hasn't

told them is the correct opinion. Do you want coffee? Yes, please. I

remember definitely, when we went to see the Van Gogh museum, that was

the first time as a child I wasn't like, "How soon can we leave? It was

really cool. For us it's a hobby. But for her it's becoming an

obsession. A little bit. I chose this painting for the competition.

It's called painterly realism of a boy with a rucksack colour mass in

the fourth die vention. -- Dimension. When I first saw this

painting I took a long time trying to decide what the artist was doing.

The artist was Russian and working just before and after the Russian

Revolution. He was radical. These two women in the art gallery came up

to me and I think they thought because I was standing there for a

long time, I must know what the painting is about. They asked me,

"Do you have any idea what he's going on about with that title? It's

not to everyone's taste. It's just a black and Red Square. I think it's a

daring thing to do. I'm 17 from Bournemouth. Lyle won

the Wiltshire regional heat just three days ago. The piece I'm

talking about for my presentation is really the piece that's made me

fully and wholly convinced that you can change somebody's understanding

of the world with even just a single image.

The piece is by a French street artist, JR. The entire thing is set

up for you to fall into its trap really, that you glaze over the fact

he's not actually holding a gun. In reality he's holding a video cam ra.

You only thing it's a gun if you don't actually look at it. I chose

it because it's just an unbelievably profound image that can completely

redefine your understanding of how you assume things about people, when

do you make quick, lazy assumptions. For me, it's just a powerful piece

that is incomparable to anything else I've ever really seen. I'm

excited for Lyle. He's going to be there and I think he's got a good --

as good a chance as anybody. Especially as it's something that he

really shows enthusiasm about and it's something a little bit

different. I'm buzzing really. I'm completely confident in myself,

mostly because I'm confident in presentation. I'm looking forward to

it. I'm probably more nervous for Lyle than Lyle is about Lyle. Yeah,

right. Sorted. Cambridge, here I come.

Our fifth finalist is travelling in today from Oxford, where she won her

heat three weeks ago. My name is Marcelo. I'm from Italy

and I'm 18 years old. I decided to come to England because I wanted to

go to uni . In Italy it's a bit difficult for jobs. It's difficult

for uni in general. It never stops flowing, that's why you can actually

do it. You can see from here I ended up there with the line. I just

continue doing it. Across the charcoal. I like that. I was almost

shaking at the beginning, I'm not used to talking in front of other

people, if front of a lot of people. To make her life even harder, she's

not gone for the Leonardos and Michelangelo's she grew up with, but

an efemeral art work made out of sand. I'm going to talk about a sand

mandala. It's a piece that the monks make as a tool to itate. This

particular one reflects a Buddhist teachings. They make it and then

they destroy it after a few days. You have to be able to admire its

beauty, but then also to let it go. I think it's important because it

tells you that we can appreciate the beauty of all the objects that we

own, but without being so obsessed with and attached to their

materiality. She isn't the only competitor with Italian roots.

Tatiana is half Italian, half Danish and her family live in Cyprus. Life

here in England is very different to back in Cyprus. It has been

difficult to adjust to the English weather. In Cyprus all year round

it's pretty hot. For the last year, she's been studying art history, a

traditional English boarding school, the Kings School in Canterbury.

That is my piece, yeah. Can you tell the class about it. For my

presentation I chose a sculpture of a man by Giacometti. It's not easy

to look at. You feel disgust maybe, fear. You feel uncomfortable. That's

what initially made me want to choose this. I wanted to explore why

it was that somebody can feel so disconcerted looking at a piece of

art. Tatiana has been getting tips for the final from her school friend

Charlotte. I think half the problem is when you're speaking and you're

slightly nervous, focussed onned what you're saying, not necessarily

on how you're saying it, it will be the distance from where you're

speaking to the people at the back. You have to make sure you enunciate

well and keep the vowels clear. That's the main problem is the

vowels aren't necessarily always clear. Your pronunciation itself is

very good. Ella, our seventh finalist has travelled all the way

from Yorkshire. Unlike the other competitors, she's not yet in sixth

form. My name's Ella and I'm 16. I live in Leeds in Yorkshire and I'm

studying my GCSEs. I don't study art or art history but my English

teacher felt it would be a good opportunity for me to take part in

ARTiculation, so I did. At the regional heat in Wakefield, Ella

chose to talk about a bold piece of art. This is not necessarily a

contemporary piece of art. It is primarily a piece of graffiti, but I

necessity in your heads, there are some of the same questions and

statements that went through my mind when I first saw it. And isn't that

the point of art? As you can see in the photograph...

During the heats, I was really scared and nervous. I could hear my

voice whatevering -- wafering a little bit. Ella was so nervous that

the judge of her heat invited her to Leeds University for extra coaching.

We'll go up to the lecture theatre. How are you feeling? I'm fine. This

is one of our lecture theatres. It's massive. It's bigger than I thought

it would be. Almost the same size as the one you'll be speaking in in

Cambridge. I'm very aware that Ella is slightly younger than the rest of

the heat winners, I think. But also, she's never done art history before.

She's going into a final with other students who are studying art

history at AS or A-level and we need to give her the confidence to be

able to perform in an environment where she's going to be listening to

papers delivered by people who have been studying art history for almost

a year now. Our eighth finalist is Mercedes, who's chosen to talk about

a painting. I'm Mercedes, and I'm from the

States originally. My dad is a geologist for an oil company. We

move around a lot, actually. So I was born in New Orleans and then I

moved to Houston. Then I moved to Venezuela and then I moved to

Indonesia. Then I moved here only a year ago. So, this way is my room. I

share with my sister. We've only been in the house about a year, but

our stuff is everywhere. This is the painting that I'm presenting. It's

called the Three Stages of Woman. I like it because I can connect to it,

I guess. I went to see it with my mum and my

sister, and I was like wow, that's us. I could picture us kind of

substituted into the painting and I think it's very realistic and it's

-- in its portrayal of each of the stages, especially the older person

struck me as painfully realistic. You look pretty today. Thank you.

You're welcome. I'm sure you do too. Thank you.

She's just on the other side. Oh, hi sweet heart. I didn't know you were

there. My mother has always been close to the children, which is

great. Before she lost her sight, she would be very active in the

household and even in her early 90s, coming home from school, she was

doing the dishes and helping them with their home work. She's lovely.

She's really kind hearted and soft and it's nice to have all three

generations of women in one home. She's reminded of the analing of

women -- ageing of women every day in our household. My mum is ageing

and it's a difficult thing to watch my mother, who was so beautiful, to

age and get ever closer to leaving us. It's going to be very hard for

all of us. Here he provides insight into the

psyche of the old woman. Is she ashamed of her body? Tripled by time

or is she simply lamenting her old age?

I think my speech is a tribute of the relationship between mother and

daughter and mother and grandmother. It shows that I care and understand

each of the stages. It will be nice to at least have that, I guess, when

she's gone. As well as Lyle, there's one other

guy who has made it to the final. His name is Stanislas.

I picked up the programme. You're third in the running order and

talking about Rembrandt. What's the work of art you're discussing? I'm

talking the scene from the Bible and Christ is just about to be sent off

to crucifixion. There's eenterprisous -- there's enormous

drama. The expressions are extraordinarily unorthodox, more

than anything else in religious art. I'm intrigued why you picked it? The

judge last year said it's quite an indicator of something about our

culture that every single piece last year was from the 20th searchingery

-- century. I've been thinking about that this year. So quite cannily. I

didn't choose it because it wasn't in the Twentieth Century but I was

thinking about the differences. Do you feel you are at an advantage

because you are are the only contestant who has picked an old

master. Possibly. I don't know how they think. There's a confident

smile on your face. Good luck. We haven't got long before it begins. I

hope it goes well. Good luck to everyone. Can I invite

our first Speaker to come up please. APPLAUSE

I'm Madeleine and today I'm talking to you about this painting.

Have you ever visited the National Gallery in a plain, inexpensive,

navy blue suit? It's pretty fun. What I find most marvellous about

art is that it shows how vulnerable we are. The power of Rome is

magnified and Pilate is the firm hand again. I was mazed by the

beauty of the structure and had never seen anything like it before.

This may look like pots of vanish to you, but they're pots of sand. So

pigmented colours and gran you'lls. The but the old woman is not in

direct physical contact with the other two. Hidden behind the shroud

of her hair she stands alone, covering her face. Is she closer to

death than she is to life? First of all, eyes peeled and I will show you

it. Now, that wasn't very long. How many

of you realised it wasn't a gun? I remember the first few words looking

at this disturbing figure, starvation, illness, suffering,

helplessness, fragility. The man is half naked, this isn't something we

associate with a shepherd. Klimt illustrates the inevitable cycle of

life and death. It shows anguish, fear confusion and anger. It shows

something visceral only Rembrandt could provide. Thank you.

For me, houses are no longer just for living in, they are for admiring

and inspiring just like a piece of art. Thank you.

APPLAUSE I do not envy Edmund's job one bit.

I think there are some real contenders here. I thought Tatiana,

brilliant speech, maybe not so well delivered. I thought Stan and

Rembrandt, very good. I felt that Ella, dark horse at the end, funny

and engaging. But my money is on Mercedes, because she had a really

calm, tranquil presence, which was very charismatic and had the entire

room Spelbound. Thankfully, I'm not the one who has to decide.

Thank you. We're now ready. Thank you very much.

Hi everyone. Hello you. I'm going to talk to you, forget everyone else.

It's all about you actually spending time thinking, caring, looking and

then sharing. It's absolutely tremendous. The third prize is going

to Anna. APPLAUSE

And the second prize goes to the man in the blue suit, Stanislaw.

APPLAUSE The first prize for ARTiculation

2014 for a tremendous and very powerful evokation goes to

Madeleine. APPLAUSE

I chose Madeleine because I had never been walked through that work

so cogently and passionately in ten minutes. It was phenomenal. I feel

really delighted that I've come here today. It's reminded me - art can't

exist in a vacuum. It needs an audience, people to communicate its

ideas and magic, its crackle,if you like. I feel grateful to -- to these

teenagers because their passion is so joyful that they've offered for

me a lesson in how to look and that ultimately is what it's all about.

Congratulations. You kept looking up. I was so proud

of you. Well done. Hi it's Madeleine. How did it go? Yeah, it

was good, I won, which is exciting. You won? This is like amazing! This

is so cool! Are you excited? Yes, yes, very surprised. Oh, I am so, so

excited for you, Madeleine, I can't believe it. This is so, so cool.