:01:57. > :02:06.Hello and welcome to the Culture Show. Tonne the art of 2012, our
:02:06. > :02:13.highlights from an extraordinary year complete with Re with
:02:13. > :02:21.renaissance masters, all brought to you from the David Nash Exhibition.
:02:21. > :02:27.Florence Welch revels in the renaissance. Michael Smith
:02:27. > :02:32.experiences the speed of light. And the Southbank opens its academy,
:02:32. > :02:39.sort of! But we begin with a cliffhanger,
:02:39. > :02:49.this summer the town of bex hill on sea stage add tribute to one end of
:02:49. > :03:05.
:03:05. > :03:14.a movie ending. Mark Kermode went The The tate The Italian Job,
:03:14. > :03:21.complete with Minis in Union Jack formation, a cast of home-grown
:03:21. > :03:24.greats, and a raft of killer one liners.
:03:24. > :03:32.You are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.
:03:32. > :03:42.Plot resolves around a small time crook played by Michael Caine who
:03:42. > :03:44.
:03:44. > :03:48.tries to nick �4 million of it taleion gold -- Italian gold.
:03:48. > :03:57.But it is perhaps best known for having one of the most memorable
:03:57. > :04:00.final sequences in film history. Disaster strikes just when our boys
:04:00. > :04:03.think they are home and dry with the stolen gold and our hero
:04:03. > :04:13.announces the film's final cliff hanging line.
:04:13. > :04:18.Hang on a minute, lads. I got a great idea.
:04:18. > :04:24.Farce forward 43 years to 2012 and the artist Richard Wilson has come
:04:24. > :04:34.up with the idea of replicating the film moments of that film by
:04:34. > :04:38.
:04:38. > :04:45.hanging a replica bus here in Bexhill-on-Sea.
:04:45. > :04:48.Richard, we have a coach on the edge of the Delaware Pavilion.
:04:48. > :04:52.Where did the great idea come from? It came from many, many different
:04:52. > :04:57.notions. As you say, it is on the edge, it is half on something solid.
:04:57. > :05:00.It is half on open space. We are on the water's edge. We are on land,
:05:00. > :05:04.but we have got the sea. The sea runs out to the edge and we have
:05:04. > :05:09.got sky. We are dealing with the edge of the building. It is lots of
:05:09. > :05:13.things that come together to build a cliffhanger. We need to draw
:05:13. > :05:17.people's attention to the building. What can I do that's iconic? That's
:05:17. > :05:21.a cliffhanger. I started to think about that moment of the coach in
:05:21. > :05:26.that wonderful film The Italian Job, what can I do like that? It was so
:05:27. > :05:30.obvious. Do it. Don't find something like that, reenacthat
:05:30. > :05:33.cinematic moment on this icon building.
:05:33. > :05:41.I've played with facades and I now want to play with an edge.
:05:41. > :05:47.For over 20 years, Richard Wilson has been cre creating epic sight
:05:47. > :05:53.intal lations. He chose to play with our perceptions of surface, by
:05:53. > :06:02.spinning a section of a blag's facade. He flooded a room with oil
:06:02. > :06:08.with a waist-high walkway. In 2000, he displayed a 15% cross
:06:08. > :06:15.section of a ship. His next project will reveal the
:06:15. > :06:19.solid embodiment of the void left by a spinning stunt plane. In these
:06:19. > :06:23.works, Wilson is asking us to look again at the world we take for
:06:23. > :06:28.granted. I'm taking imaginary which is
:06:28. > :06:33.current and it is understood. If I'm working with a vocabulary of
:06:33. > :06:35.forms that I've invented like a couple of my colleagues, where it
:06:35. > :06:39.comes from the imagination, but doesn't have a reference point,
:06:39. > :06:42.you're struggling a bit. If I take objects that exist in the real
:06:42. > :06:46.world, people know those and and they are having a relationship with
:06:46. > :06:49.them. What do you think is about The
:06:49. > :06:54.Italian Job that captures the imagination after all these
:06:54. > :07:03.generations? It is a caper, it is an action adventure, it is a
:07:03. > :07:07.comedy? Key stone cops meet the lavender Hill mob. Getting the gold
:07:07. > :07:12.and bringing it back. I could eat a horse.
:07:12. > :07:17.To spend that time and effort and money to go and do something like
:07:17. > :07:21.that and to botch it at the end, it is like watching England play
:07:21. > :07:25.football! There are two things people are sniffy about, comedy and
:07:25. > :07:30.action. If something makes somebody laugh, it will be spectacular. Do
:07:30. > :07:35.you find the same thing is true in the sculpture world? If it is
:07:35. > :07:37.spectacular, if it makes you laugh, it can be looked down on? I have
:07:37. > :07:42.been fortunate in my career. There has always been an element of
:07:42. > :07:46.humour. If you for example, take the piece up in Liverpool. You're
:07:46. > :07:52.doing something with architecture that it doesn't do. Architecture
:07:53. > :08:00.doesn't move. So people go, "Oh my god." You don't need to be versed
:08:00. > :08:05.in art art grammar to get it. I like the considered that there is
:08:05. > :08:10.so much information and imagery pouring into us now, I want to get
:08:10. > :08:18.that snapshot look on things and by doing that, I have got to do that
:08:18. > :08:21.little moment which is the structural daring. You can stay and
:08:21. > :08:25.contemplate or you can move on. It is a great piece.
:08:25. > :08:33.Congratulations. Next, Yayoi Kusama is one of the
:08:33. > :08:39.most intriguing artists of our time. At 83 she lives in a psychiatric
:08:39. > :08:47.psychiatric institution, but producing art that dazzles or stuns.
:08:47. > :08:54.Alistair went to see an exhibition of her work at Tait Modern.
:08:54. > :09:01.-- Tate Modernpm Princess of poke co dots produced a range of work
:09:01. > :09:08.over her 60 year career. Abstract paintings and and sculptures,
:09:09. > :09:16.happenings and films, fashion, and poetry. All very colourful, playful
:09:16. > :09:19.and seemingly joyful works. But appearances can be deceptive. Like
:09:19. > :09:23.Alice In Wonderland, her work is rooted in darker stuff. Imagine
:09:23. > :09:28.being a child, looking at a patterned tablecloth covered with
:09:28. > :09:32.large, red flowers and looking up at the walls and the ceiling and
:09:32. > :09:36.seeing that pattern repeated there, quite weird, maybe an optical
:09:36. > :09:40.illusion, perhaps tired eyes playing tricks on you, until you
:09:40. > :09:46.look at your own body and you see that same pattern endlessly
:09:46. > :09:52.repeated there too. As a ten-year- old, that must be terrifying.
:09:52. > :09:56.But it was these terrifying what lution nations -- hallucinations
:09:56. > :10:00.that saw the flowering of her extraordinary work. Yayoi Kusama
:10:01. > :10:06.has always been clear about what her art means to her. If it were
:10:06. > :10:10.not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago she has
:10:10. > :10:14.written. Yayoi Kusama has suffered from
:10:14. > :10:19.severe mental illness all her life. She lives voluntarily in a
:10:19. > :10:22.psychiatric hospital in Japan and for her, re-creating the
:10:22. > :10:27.hallucinations is a way of controlling her anxieties and fears.
:10:27. > :10:33.I'm now determined to create a Yayoi Kusama world she once wrote
:10:33. > :10:36.so here goes. Time to enter Yayoi Kusama's world.
:10:37. > :10:40.Entering the first room in the exhibition, her early work is
:10:40. > :10:45.surprisingly muted, but joining me on what promises to be a sensory
:10:45. > :10:51.trip are three women of Yayoi Kusama's generation who haven't let
:10:51. > :10:59.age restrict their horizons. What do you think? It is
:10:59. > :11:06.overwhelming. I think it is very Japanese.
:11:06. > :11:16.It is macho. This doesn't necessarily feel macho to me.
:11:16. > :11:18.
:11:18. > :11:20.What do you think? Well, I mean, it is said, you know,
:11:21. > :11:30.some are an ejaculation over the canvas.
:11:30. > :11:38.I am glad you said that. It is certainly enveloping.
:11:38. > :11:42.So here a piece, it is called Aggregation.
:11:42. > :11:47.It looks like pro tuitions and one little shoepm. She was anxious
:11:47. > :11:50.about the male sex organ she says. She is confronting her inner most
:11:50. > :11:57.fears definitely. Yes.
:11:57. > :12:03.What you see here is one of the earliest installations, it is a
:12:03. > :12:07.holely immerse -- wholly immersive environment. What can we see?
:12:07. > :12:14.Repetition. Repetition. Andy Warhol.
:12:14. > :12:23.Well, he saw this and a few years later, three years later, he made
:12:23. > :12:29.some wallpaper of his own. She is way ahead of Warhol. In here, we
:12:29. > :12:33.see something different again. It is a film Yayoi Kusama made in the
:12:33. > :12:37.late 60s. It is hard to make out what it is, but we start to see
:12:37. > :12:43.these happenings where she gets people to take their clothes off,
:12:43. > :12:47.partly because she is tapping into the counter culture, she became the
:12:47. > :12:51.high priestess of the whole hippie movie. Patricia, you said you were
:12:51. > :12:57.living in New York at the time. Do you remember the flower children?
:12:57. > :13:00.do, yes. They were fabulous and they were against the Vietnam War,
:13:00. > :13:08.make love, not war, oh, yes. That appeals to me a lot.
:13:09. > :13:15.What is going on there? Well, it is ang orgy -- an orgy.
:13:15. > :13:24.It is not really somebody who is afraid of the fal lis anymore.
:13:25. > :13:31.That's what she says. Wow.
:13:31. > :13:38.This is a piece she made specialically for -- specially for
:13:38. > :13:42.this show. This is one made for the Tate. There is water there so you
:13:42. > :13:45.have the reflections of these glowing bulbs on every side. It is
:13:45. > :13:50.amazing. It is like a great, big city scape.
:13:51. > :13:58.So, do you think there is any sense that you've kind of stumbled into
:13:58. > :14:02.her head? Here is the polka dot vision? Certainly infinity.
:14:02. > :14:07.And beyond. I feel she has resolved something
:14:07. > :14:12.and at 82, I hope she has. Yes, I hope she... There is more
:14:12. > :14:22.calm in this. Yes. Yes. It is an embracing of infinity,
:14:22. > :14:23.
:14:23. > :14:28.2012 has been packed with wonderful exhibitions, but let's not forget
:14:28. > :14:32.that here in Britain, we are blessed with some of the greatest
:14:32. > :14:35.permanent collections of art in the world.
:14:35. > :14:39.Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine is enthralled to the pain
:14:39. > :14:44.and the pleasure and the transcendance of the renaissance
:14:44. > :14:48.masters at the National Gallery. Together, we went to take a look.
:14:48. > :14:50.There aren't many pop stars to be found walking the corridors of the
:14:50. > :14:55.National Gallery in the dead of night.
:14:55. > :14:59.But Florence Welch is the kind of pop star we haven't seen for a
:14:59. > :15:06.while. Her music brings the great themes
:15:06. > :15:11.of the renaissance into the 21st century. Love, death, sex and of
:15:11. > :15:18.course, God. It is high church indie-rock, lush
:15:18. > :15:24.with organs blasting and a big dose of drama.
:15:24. > :15:32.I have come to meet Florence in the Renaissance Galleries to find out
:15:32. > :15:37.more about the art that inspires her.
:15:37. > :15:41.Is going to galleries something you do? Is it a respite from the
:15:41. > :15:45.madness of being on tour? It is something we try and do almost
:15:45. > :15:49.every city we go to. I think just the sense of being outside yourself.
:15:49. > :15:54.I have always liked the atmosphere of galleries.
:15:54. > :15:59.I suppose some people might think it is an unusual preoccupation for
:15:59. > :16:03.for someone in the music business could be interested in renaissance
:16:03. > :16:08.considerate. All these pictures are about love, passion, the desire to
:16:08. > :16:15.fly. In a sense, some of your songs are about those things, aren't
:16:15. > :16:19.they? There is a lot of drama going on in this room and amazing
:16:19. > :16:23.wallpaper as well. What kind of things do you look for when you
:16:23. > :16:30.look at a painting? What did you gravitate towards? I like this one
:16:30. > :16:34.a lot. She looks very serene in a lot of the Renaissance paintings of
:16:34. > :16:37.martyrs, they do because it is about that sense of tran senance of
:16:37. > :16:47.leaving the pain in your body and the the spirit going somewhere
:16:47. > :16:48.
:16:48. > :16:52.better. I like the physicality of this one. I deaf fitly pulled --
:16:52. > :16:58.definitely pulled that pose in a few photo shoots. I have seen that
:16:58. > :17:00.one! I imagine this might be a picture
:17:00. > :17:04.that I would have thought might appeal to you because it is doing a
:17:04. > :17:08.lot of things in a way that your music does? At first, it is very,
:17:08. > :17:15.very beautiful, but the more you look, the more disturbing it is.
:17:15. > :17:24.It is quite disturbing. I saw it as a canvas for love.
:17:24. > :17:31.Well, it is jealousy, but we now think that syphilis might be
:17:31. > :17:35.intended. He has the rotting teeth. Then this creature, it is a strange
:17:35. > :17:42.sort of half - she seems to be holding a cake.
:17:42. > :17:46.She is actually holding a honeycomb and she looks like, no, she is
:17:46. > :17:50.pleasure and she looks like an innocent and sweet little girl, but
:17:50. > :17:56.she has a sting in the tail. If you go the route of pleasure as Cupid
:17:56. > :18:00.and his mother doing and syphilis maybe the consequence.
:18:00. > :18:10.I am always attracted to the big things because I feel that they
:18:10. > :18:14.
:18:14. > :18:24.last and sex, time, death, violence. So what we have done trasendance.
:18:24. > :18:25.
:18:25. > :18:30.Do you think we should find other great themes? It is time for death.
:18:30. > :18:36.A morbid picture we have decided to end on. There is a bit of lust as
:18:36. > :18:41.well because the hunter surprised Diana when she was bathing and she
:18:41. > :18:44.took revenge by turning him into a stag and he is killed by his own
:18:45. > :18:52.hounds. It feels to me like a very personal
:18:52. > :18:58.picture. Do you think he was rebuffed? I don't know. I mean I
:18:58. > :19:02.think it is a tishan painting... Knocking him down? Well, as ap
:19:02. > :19:06.memory or he -- a memory or he knows that he is on his way out. It
:19:06. > :19:10.is a picture about encroaching death. It is a picture that feels
:19:10. > :19:17.like autumn. It is so unlike the other pictures we looked at. There
:19:17. > :19:25.is no glowing flesh and the colours are rusty and yet autumnal and
:19:25. > :19:31.there is no bright blues and the folds of the fabric seem to be
:19:31. > :19:34.merging together. He still wants her even though she
:19:34. > :19:40.is killing him. Maybe you should write a song about it!
:19:40. > :19:45.And those paintings are on display seven days a week free of charge.
:19:45. > :19:52.Now, it is to this year's Edinburgh international festival where one
:19:52. > :19:56.highlight entitled speed of light fused public art, performance and a
:19:56. > :20:02.lot of huffing and puffing. Michael Smith took a hike.
:20:02. > :20:10.Edinburgh must be one of the most Burns settings to experience art in
:20:10. > :20:14.Britain. A rich poem set in stone. But Speed of Light commissioned for
:20:14. > :20:21.this year's international festival, jolt us out of this familiar
:20:21. > :20:25.context and plunges us into a stranger, more profound place.
:20:25. > :20:30.Every night the extinct volcano that looms over Edinburgh is
:20:30. > :20:36.brought to life by a spectacular theatre of light.
:20:36. > :20:41.200 runners kitted out in specially made LED light suits weave their
:20:42. > :20:47.way across Salisbury Crags leaving beautiful abstractions in their
:20:47. > :20:51.wake. It is a participatory event. Each
:20:51. > :21:01.audience member carries their own portable light source and becomes
:21:01. > :21:02.
:21:02. > :21:08.part of the artwork. As the dusk draws into darkness, we
:21:09. > :21:16.walk in single file like some florescent caterpillar from the sea
:21:16. > :21:20.bed. Like wondrous, medieval, angelic creatures, slighty scary as
:21:20. > :21:25.they rush head-long towards us. It is a very minimal piece this one.
:21:25. > :21:28.Stripped back to a meditation on one of our most basic every day
:21:28. > :21:38.activities, running, walking, moving through the spaces we
:21:38. > :21:44.
:21:44. > :21:49.inhabit, but it reimagines them as something magicical, and sublime.
:21:49. > :21:55.It has been a long time coming this piece, why was it so important that
:21:55. > :22:00.you got it done? I had been a running for 13 years and I got more
:22:00. > :22:03.and more passionate about running. So I think when the Olympics came
:22:03. > :22:09.round and when you know the chance came to make maybe a generational
:22:09. > :22:13.work, you know, you only get to make these works once every 10 or 0
:22:13. > :22:16.years, I want -- 20 years, I wanted to do it about the thing I was
:22:16. > :22:19.really passionate about. Being a public work and the
:22:19. > :22:26.audience form a really important part of the work, what reaction
:22:26. > :22:29.have you had from the audience? some people it is hard for them to
:22:29. > :22:33.get that sense of peace and stillness to watch the work. Other
:22:33. > :22:39.people come off and it can be a life changing experience. You get
:22:39. > :22:44.the full mixture. What's the inspiration, perspiration ratio of
:22:44. > :22:47.this piece? It is 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration!
:22:47. > :22:52.I will have that. That's all right, yeah.
:22:52. > :22:59.Good, honest graft. Is this a piece of art or a piece
:22:59. > :23:03.of sport or a piece of science? am not quite sure what it is. It is
:23:03. > :23:06.made by the effort of the runners and it is also completed by the
:23:06. > :23:10.effort of the walkers and their movement of the lights to the top
:23:10. > :23:16.of the hill. It is a piece of work that's subtle. It is durational. It
:23:16. > :23:22.is like a slow moving human sculpture.
:23:22. > :23:32.The steep climb brings a whole new perspective. Not only do we get a
:23:32. > :23:37.bird's eye view of space, but a bird's eye view of time. The birth
:23:37. > :23:47.of constellation, the drift of tectonic plates. The experience of
:23:47. > :23:51.
:23:51. > :23:54.speed of light crescendos at the peak of Arthur's Seat. All human
:23:54. > :24:00.endeavour reduced to to dots of light in the night maim. The
:24:00. > :24:04.runners are a metaphor for the real city down there, for all our cities
:24:04. > :24:14.and civilisations, but all human adventures over the generations,
:24:14. > :24:16.
:24:16. > :24:20.like the coral fossil of Edinburgh, Next, they called it an experiment
:24:20. > :24:25.in public learning and the wide open school that was in operation
:24:25. > :24:29.at London's South Bank Centre this summer was nothing, if not boundary
:24:29. > :24:34.boundary breaking, rather ten tatively, I went along.
:24:34. > :24:38.The wide open school is a unique experiment in public learning. For
:24:38. > :24:43.one month, you can come and attend classes, lectures and workshops run
:24:44. > :24:51.by over 100 artists covering a predictably unpredictable range of
:24:51. > :24:56.subjects. Today's first lecture is is by one man with two names - Bob
:24:56. > :25:01.and Roberto Smith. All schools must be art schools.
:25:01. > :25:09.Make your own art. Do not expect Michel Le Bon to do it -- don't
:25:09. > :25:15.expect me to do it. This is a public lecture. This a
:25:15. > :25:20.public lecture. It is good if you anunsiate more. Imagine you are
:25:20. > :25:25.Michael Caine or Arthur Smith. I will do that.
:25:25. > :25:30.This is a public lecture. This is a public lecture.
:25:30. > :25:36.That's very good. Next up Michael Landy's course in
:25:36. > :25:41.destruction. He is famous for his work, Breakdown in which he
:25:41. > :25:46.destroyed each and everyone of his possessions, including his books
:25:46. > :25:49.which happened to be in his library. Landy has asked each of them to
:25:49. > :25:55.bring an object of personal personal significance, that will be
:25:55. > :26:00.discussed and then destroyed. brought my digital radio.
:26:00. > :26:03.This is a VHS tape by is a documentary about the power of art.
:26:03. > :26:07.I brought my teacher's planner from last year.
:26:07. > :26:12.Highly the workshop on destruction does what it says on the tin, not
:26:12. > :26:22.all the classes are quite so easy to understand.
:26:22. > :26:26.
:26:26. > :26:36.I am a little bit nervous about this workshop, it is run by an
:26:36. > :26:48.
:26:48. > :26:52.Have you ever had had the feeling that you are not entirely welcome?
:26:52. > :26:56.Get out. Get out? Yes, please. Thank you.
:26:56. > :27:01.Goodbye. I have been thrown out. I think I
:27:01. > :27:06.did something wrong. I don't know what!
:27:06. > :27:15.Whoops. Someone who knows about teaching con accept actual art is
:27:15. > :27:18.Michael Craig Martin, artist and professor of fine art at at
:27:18. > :27:22.Goldsmith's. I went to a workshop and they through me out? Well, it
:27:22. > :27:26.is not the easiest thing to step into without giving yourself to it.
:27:27. > :27:30.The whole idea of being an observer of it, when I was teaching I would
:27:30. > :27:37.never let any camera ever come near what I was doing.
:27:37. > :27:40.Do you think that despite, the obviously deliberate kind of an
:27:40. > :27:44.arcic atmosphere of a lot of these workshops, do you think that
:27:44. > :27:47.despite that, actually what comes through for many people attending
:27:47. > :27:51.will be worthwhile? The idea of being foolish of doing things that
:27:51. > :27:54.you don't really know what you're doing, things that are a little
:27:54. > :27:57.crazy, doing things like that, there is something you learn from
:27:57. > :28:02.the experience of allowing your mind to go there.
:28:02. > :28:05.Maybe that's why he chucked me out. He knew I was just watching. Maybe
:28:06. > :28:12.if you go through the process, you learn something in a different way?
:28:12. > :28:17.As you clearly don't intend to that, you will never know!
:28:17. > :28:27.How do you know? I might. It is the end of another door at
:28:27. > :28:31.the Wide Open School and the school have finished their des strect
:28:31. > :28:38.destructive lecture. What's the point? It is to do with
:28:38. > :28:45.kind of trying to go beyond sculpture. To make it dematerial.
:28:45. > :28:48.That's what I think. Get on with it then!
:28:48. > :28:51.LAUGHTER That's not very good.
:28:51. > :28:57.We're going to have to pull some bits off.
:28:57. > :29:00.Can we film this all over again? Can we start all over again? This
:29:00. > :29:03.is my career, we're talking about. I'm going to watch the rest from
:29:03. > :29:06.indoors. Well, it is in the nature of
:29:06. > :29:12.experiments that they don't always go to plan, but in this case, the
:29:12. > :29:15.art isn't perhaps the point as the old cliche goes, it is the taking
:29:15. > :29:19.part that counts. Well, that's just about it. Don't
:29:19. > :29:22.miss next week's show when when Mark Kermode will reveal his movie
:29:22. > :29:30.highlights of the year and if you need a culture fix between now and
:29:30. > :29:34.then, go to the space.org. Before we go, 2012 saw the coming together
:29:34. > :29:41.of the Cultural Olympiad with over 16 million people getting involved
:29:41. > :29:49.since 2008. The Southbank South Bank Centre