0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11In the 20th century, something strange happened to art.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Traditions that had held good for centuries
0:00:13 > 0:00:16suddenly felt badly out of date.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22And a new breed of artists emerged to overturn them,
0:00:22 > 0:00:27erasing the map of art, and redrawing it for a new age.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36'All right. Stand by then, please.'
0:00:36 > 0:00:38And something else had changed.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42For the first time, television allowed artists to speak
0:00:42 > 0:00:44directly about their work.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46'Well, what kept you going, then?'
0:00:46 > 0:00:49I can't say, just I kept going, something made me keep on going.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop myself.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55'It forces you to do something in a different way.'
0:00:55 > 0:00:58Come back over here where the light is.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03In this series, we'll be digging deep into the BBC archives to hear
0:01:03 > 0:01:07the story of 20th-century art first-hand - from the artists themselves.
0:01:09 > 0:01:16Salvador Dali is very rich and Dali love tremendously money.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22HE YELLS
0:01:22 > 0:01:24In the final episode,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28we tell the story of how a fringe group of radicals took on
0:01:28 > 0:01:30centuries of art history
0:01:30 > 0:01:32and won.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36Breaking through the walls of the gallery,
0:01:36 > 0:01:40tearing up the rule book and putting art on the front pages.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44I would hope my work would be able to convey the sense of
0:01:44 > 0:01:48serene order that, let's say, a fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach would do.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54How some artists took art into the wide open spaces of deserts and mountains.
0:01:56 > 0:01:57Art can be made anywhere in the world.
0:01:57 > 0:02:02So there's no hierarchy of places say between mountain tops or museums.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09How others rediscovered a fascination for the human body.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13If you put your...knee...forward? Yeah. Absolutely.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19While others delved into the darker recesses of their psyches.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22I think she's only just tickling her at the moment,
0:02:22 > 0:02:24but something horrible's going to happen.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31And how the once-shocking innovations of modern artists
0:02:31 > 0:02:36came to be prized by collectors and public alike.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39I'm an enfant terrible, or I used to be.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42Six million pounds, then - all done.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02Up until the mid-20th century, art meant broadly two things -
0:03:02 > 0:03:05painting and sculpture.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10Artists created objects that could be easily shown, bought
0:03:10 > 0:03:15and sold, to people with money.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18STUDENTS CHANT
0:03:18 > 0:03:23Then, in the late 1960s, just as the streets of Europe
0:03:23 > 0:03:28and America came alive with the sound of protest, a generation
0:03:28 > 0:03:33of experimental artists mounted a political protest of their own.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35Is it art? What's it got to do with art?
0:03:35 > 0:03:37You think you're an artist?
0:03:37 > 0:03:44For good or ill, it would lead to one of the greatest revolutions in cultural history.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47..Sunny intervals...
0:03:47 > 0:03:52They rejected the idea that art had to be a unique physical object,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55to be venerated in the gallery or sold on the market.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04And by focusing more on the process than the finished work,
0:04:04 > 0:04:08many of these artists left the gallery behind
0:04:08 > 0:04:11as they tried to drag modern art out into the world.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20Now, they claimed, art could be a performance,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24A simple arrangement of industrial materials,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27even GBH on an innocent piano.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Mr Ortiz, that seemed a perfectly inoffensive piano in quite good working order.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36Why smash it to bits?
0:04:36 > 0:04:38Because it's my enemy.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Because it's a symbol of structure
0:04:41 > 0:04:44that imposes on my instinctual life as an artist.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47MUSIC: "Pretty Vacant" by the Sex Pistols
0:04:48 > 0:04:52For years, this artistic revolution seemed to be passing
0:04:52 > 0:04:53the British public by.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Then, in 1976, one single event would see the entire nation wake up
0:05:00 > 0:05:02to what was happening in art.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09That year, ship builder's son Carl Andre found a work
0:05:09 > 0:05:13he made in the late 1960s become front-page news
0:05:13 > 0:05:16when it was purchased by the Tate Gallery.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18There was just this suspicion,
0:05:18 > 0:05:25this perpetual depressing relentless suspicion of contemporary art.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29"What," asked an incredulous public, "was a pile of bricks
0:05:29 > 0:05:33"doing in one of Britain's most prestigious art establishments?"
0:05:35 > 0:05:38The person who believes himself that this is sculpture
0:05:38 > 0:05:41is making fun of us. It's a pile of bricks!
0:05:45 > 0:05:50In March 1978, Andre appeared on television to answer his critics.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56But the true materials that you're talking about can be picked up
0:05:56 > 0:05:58by anybody off a building lot.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00And people get upset -
0:06:00 > 0:06:03people who expect art to be precious and unique.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07So why don't you deal in the sort of materials - like marble, for instance -
0:06:07 > 0:06:09that people expect art to be made of?
0:06:09 > 0:06:11Paint and canvas are not unique, either.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14It is what is done with the materials of art,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18not the materials of art themselves, which produce art.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21When you buy a Rembrandt you are not paying for a weight of canvas
0:06:21 > 0:06:23and a weight of pigment.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25You are buying the work of an artist
0:06:25 > 0:06:28and in my case, you're also buying the work of an artist.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38Andre's controversial use of these unglamorous materials
0:06:38 > 0:06:42placed him as a leading figure in an art movement known as Minimalism.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48The term was first used to describe a group of American artists
0:06:48 > 0:06:52who were united by the desire to strip art back to basic forms.
0:06:55 > 0:06:59Minimalism wasn't about describing things.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01It wasn't about making very obvious points.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04It was a search for sort of core values.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07For sort of deeper sculptural feelings.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10And of course, when it worked, ah! I mean, it's...
0:07:10 > 0:07:14it has an impact on you that going into a beautiful church can have
0:07:14 > 0:07:19because it's based on an ambition to create these very deep, very sublime feelings.
0:07:24 > 0:07:29While Andre's work may have appeared cerebral or remote,
0:07:29 > 0:07:34his use of industrial materials stemmed directly from his own personal experience.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42From 1960 to 1964,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46I worked as freight brakeman or guard on the Pennsylvania railroad
0:07:46 > 0:07:50which is now bankrupt - I did not contribute to that, I hope.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54And I did that just to survive, to earn a living.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58But I think that was my final art academy, the railroad.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02I had the opportunity to really work with the engines and the heavy cars,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05and the tracks and the yards, and, er...
0:08:05 > 0:08:07The marks that I've made on canvas or paper
0:08:07 > 0:08:09have never been to convincing to me
0:08:09 > 0:08:11in the way that moving a timber or brick from
0:08:11 > 0:08:13one side of the room to another.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16I guess I require the tactical relationship to my work
0:08:16 > 0:08:19rather than the visual projective one of painting or drawing.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Carl Andre's bricks were really intriguing.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37I think they made us look at very, very basic primary forms
0:08:37 > 0:08:41and substances in very new ways. I think in doing that,
0:08:41 > 0:08:44that was a really new thing in the history of art.
0:08:56 > 0:09:02The 1970s saw several artists take art outside the gallery altogether.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06One of them was the British artist Richard Long -
0:09:06 > 0:09:09sculptor, rambler and nomad.
0:09:13 > 0:09:14OK, cut.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21Richard Long was born in the West Country in 1945.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27Aged only 22 years old and a student in London, he created
0:09:27 > 0:09:31his first important art work - A Line Made By Walking.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37The work was a faint line that appeared for a short while
0:09:37 > 0:09:41after Long walked back and forth in a field.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46But it was also the photograph of the line itself.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51For me, he is simply one of the greatest English artists of all time.
0:09:54 > 0:10:00Because everybody saw that this very young man had discovered something
0:10:00 > 0:10:05that was there all the time, but which nobody had understood before.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18Like that early sculpture, nearly all of Long's works are based
0:10:18 > 0:10:22on walks - often made through some of the most remote places on Earth.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29Long creates his art solely from the natural environment
0:10:29 > 0:10:35he encounters - turning ancient rocks, stones and dirt
0:10:35 > 0:10:38into spontaneous sculptures using his own body as his only tool.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44For Long, the process of making these works
0:10:44 > 0:10:48is as important as the photographs, maps and prints he creates.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Long has always cultivated mystery.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56He never reveals the exact locations of sculptures
0:10:56 > 0:10:59and he rarely speaks in public.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03In 1983, he made one of his only television
0:11:03 > 0:11:06appearances on BBC's Omnibus.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08I like the idea very much that people can know that
0:11:08 > 0:11:13art can be made anywhere in the world, wherever the artist is.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17So there is no hierarchy of places, say between mountaintops or museums.
0:11:17 > 0:11:22Each particular work on its own is very simple. Stones, circles, lines.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26I think it has more layers of meaning and resonance taken all together
0:11:26 > 0:11:30because I work in different forms.
0:11:30 > 0:11:35I make walks, I make maps so formally, it is quite wide.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43The idea of a walk being a piece of sculpture was quite provocative
0:11:43 > 0:11:46and even puzzling.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50It is not the movement which is the work in his case,
0:11:50 > 0:11:52it is where he goes and what he does.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56I think I am interested in empty places.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00Places which are almost abstract, I think.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04So whatever you do in them - whether it's just walking a line or
0:12:04 > 0:12:09walking a circle, throwing some stones around.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13It's sort of, something is happening in the middle of nothing.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28Now what has been happening in landscape art since 1950?
0:12:28 > 0:12:32Well, something quite unprecedented in the case of Richard Long.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34Born 38 years ago in Bristol
0:12:34 > 0:12:37and now an artist of very considerable international repute.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45In 1983, Long's radical take on sculpture provoked a bad
0:12:45 > 0:12:50tempered debate in the Omnibus studio, chaired by Richard Baker.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53The Tate Gallery's David Brown clashed with poet
0:12:53 > 0:12:57Edward Lucie Smith, over that eternal question...
0:12:57 > 0:13:01Is it art? What makes you say it is art?
0:13:01 > 0:13:03Because Richard Long says it's art.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06And his arrangement of stones and his work.
0:13:06 > 0:13:07If people say something is art,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10- we have to proceed on the assumption that it is.- Is it art?
0:13:10 > 0:13:13A lot of people say things are art, but they're not very interesting.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16- Is it art?- He says it's art... - That is assertion.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18- You see, it's assertion. - Of course, it is bound to be.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20No, it isn't.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23Can you define what art is, Ted?!
0:13:23 > 0:13:24I am not even going to try,
0:13:24 > 0:13:27and I won't be put in that position by you or anybody else.
0:13:30 > 0:13:32Long's work doesn't say,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35if I put it in a gallery, it becomes a work of art.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39What he says is, there are things we can put in a gallery that will
0:13:39 > 0:13:43naturally obliterate the barrier between the gallery
0:13:43 > 0:13:46and the outside world, which will make your aesthetic
0:13:46 > 0:13:50sensibility and your mind roam freely between these two realms.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06'Ladies and gentleman, if those passengers seated to the left
0:14:06 > 0:14:09'side of the aircraft would care to look out of their window,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13'they should be able to see down below them a rather unusual sight.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16'The large white area you can see there glistening in the sun
0:14:16 > 0:14:18'is the work of the artist Christo.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22'Who, believe it or not, has come over here to wrap up the coast.'
0:14:28 > 0:14:32In the 1970s, Bulgarian exile Christo
0:14:32 > 0:14:36and his wife Jeanne-Claude became the world's leading creators
0:14:36 > 0:14:40of a kind of art that left the gallery a distant memory.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51Claiming to be breaking down the barrier between contemporary art
0:14:51 > 0:14:56and the public, they wrapped objects as diverse as bridges,
0:14:56 > 0:15:01buildings and even entire islands.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04Unlike other public artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude
0:15:04 > 0:15:08wanted to draw our attention to what was already there -
0:15:08 > 0:15:12by simultaneously hiding and revealing our own world to us.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20For art to really get out of the gallery successfully,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23it needed to appeal a lot of people.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27And an artist like Christo, he is a show-biz artist.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31And for the big wide world to notice what was going on in art,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33you needed to become a noisy figure.
0:15:37 > 0:15:42In 1977, Christo announced his most controversial project yet.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49At a time when the Cold War had split Europe in half, Christo,
0:15:49 > 0:15:53a former propaganda artist who worked under Stalin,
0:15:53 > 0:15:58announced on the BBC his plan to wrap the Reichstag in Berlin
0:15:58 > 0:16:02in 100,000 square metres of silver nylon cloth.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06The problem, or the challenge, was that the Reichstag straddled
0:16:06 > 0:16:10both the Western and the Soviet-controlled zones of the city.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17Each project, each of my projects, I try to bring new dimensions
0:16:17 > 0:16:19and new value to my work.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Reichstag is in the jurisdiction of the Bundestag in Germany,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26the parliament, but also the Four Allied Forces
0:16:26 > 0:16:29which has been sitting for the last 30 years in Berlin.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33It is in a British military zone entirely.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38But part of the East facade of the Reichstag is 60cm deep
0:16:38 > 0:16:41and 20 meters long in the Soviet territory zone.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43So you will have to get into Soviet territory?
0:16:43 > 0:16:46- You'll have to do that in Soviet territory?- Yes.
0:16:46 > 0:16:47- In East German territory?- Yes.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53Christo and Jean Claude's ideas, such as the Reichstag
0:16:53 > 0:16:57and his 27 mile long fence through California,
0:16:57 > 0:17:01have faced legal wrangles and an often hostile public.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04It's a bunch of garbage. That's art?
0:17:04 > 0:17:06Some lousy curtain coming through here?
0:17:06 > 0:17:08Bunch of city slickers looking at it?
0:17:08 > 0:17:10To hell with it! I am against it. I think it's stupid.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17Somehow, they always seemed to pull it off.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24Though it took the fall of the Berlin Wall
0:17:24 > 0:17:28for the Reichstag finally to be wrapped.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34The Running Fence project in two weeks was seen by 700,000 people.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38There is no one museum showing in the world of contemporary art
0:17:38 > 0:17:42that has that many people seeing modern art.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46It's not only the object, it's what people think, how the
0:17:46 > 0:17:49coastline can be used, how the road can be used to see a work of art.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57Their fame helped Christo and his wife to publicise and pay
0:17:57 > 0:18:01for their entirely self-funded projects all over the world.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11Here in Britain, another pair of artists began to court
0:18:11 > 0:18:15the attention of the public - though in a rather more British way.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29THEY BOTH SCREAM
0:18:29 > 0:18:31GEORGE SCREAMS
0:18:31 > 0:18:33GILBERT SCREAMS
0:18:39 > 0:18:42Gilbert and George, two people but one artist,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45describe themselves as Living Sculptures.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47HE SCREAMS
0:18:47 > 0:18:50They live and breathe their art 24 hours a day,
0:18:50 > 0:18:53creating enigmatic performances
0:18:53 > 0:18:59and striking photomontages that draw on their own lives in East London.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05Their work tackles many of society's biggest taboos -
0:19:05 > 0:19:08from sex,
0:19:08 > 0:19:12to obscenity
0:19:12 > 0:19:14and religion.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17BOTH: We like very much to be unhappy.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22BOTH: We like very much to be sober.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27In the late 1970s, the Italian born Gilbert,
0:19:27 > 0:19:31and George, from Plymouth, became cult stars.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35But for them, acclaim from the art world alone was not enough -
0:19:35 > 0:19:38they wanted to become household names.
0:19:38 > 0:19:39Throughout the 1980s,
0:19:39 > 0:19:44Gilbert and George turned up on a bizarre range of BBC television
0:19:44 > 0:19:49programmes, beginning with teenage pop series the Oxford Road Show.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55This is Gilbert and this is George.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Some people say your work is right wing propaganda.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02They call you fascists.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06Others say your work exposes our hidden fascism.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10They call you anarchists. Which view is closest to yours?
0:20:13 > 0:20:17BOTH: Both views are equally important.
0:20:19 > 0:20:21The thing about Gilbert and George,
0:20:21 > 0:20:28they are using the medium for exactly what it is intended to do.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31But at the same time, when you see them being interviewed,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33they are subverting it.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37They understand how it works but they're not behaving properly.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42In 1990, their status as the Morecombe and Wise of the art world
0:20:42 > 0:20:48was confirmed with an appearance on the BBC's flagship chat show, Wogan.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Something guest host Jonathan Ross may have regretted.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54I'll tell you what this reminds me of.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Do you remember the old episodes of That Was the Week That Was?
0:20:57 > 0:21:00It used to be John Cleese and the Two Ronnies. Standing in a line.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03And they'd say, "I look down on him, because he is lower class".
0:21:03 > 0:21:04Do you remember that?
0:21:04 > 0:21:07No, we don't know them. AUDIENCE LAUGH
0:21:07 > 0:21:09The times I have seen them on chat shows, they are brilliant.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12They really sort of nonplus the interviewer.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15At the time, as an artist I would watch them on telly
0:21:15 > 0:21:17and I would be going, "Pffff!"
0:21:17 > 0:21:22They just could not get them at all. They were great and very funny.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27# Angels help us... #
0:21:27 > 0:21:30Gilbert and George pulled off a really good trick.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Because what they said was, "Oh, well, we don't like the art world.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36"It's too high brow.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39"It's full of these people who say they are so clever.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43"We want to speak directly to the people."
0:21:43 > 0:21:46BOTH: We like very much to be drunk.
0:21:46 > 0:21:51So, they kept saying, "Our art is accessible to all."
0:21:51 > 0:21:53Without realising the truth,
0:21:53 > 0:21:57which was that their art was just as inaccessible as everybody else's,
0:21:57 > 0:22:00probably more so because so much of it was so silly.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05Want some more?
0:22:17 > 0:22:20With the provocative, even downright baffling, art
0:22:20 > 0:22:23that dominated the 1970s,
0:22:23 > 0:22:28something seemed to have disappeared - an interest in the human body.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34Over in New York, one artist, ignored by the art world
0:22:34 > 0:22:38for much of her life, emerged to reinstate the body at the heart
0:22:38 > 0:22:44of contemporary art, where it would remain throughout the 1980s.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51In her Brooklyn studio, sculptor Louise Bourgeois made art
0:22:51 > 0:22:56out of wrestling with her own, very personal demons.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03I don't say I am a wild beast all the time,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06but I am a wild beast some of the time. Right.
0:23:10 > 0:23:16She was amazing because she is like a witch from Grimm's fairy tales.
0:23:16 > 0:23:23A small, birdlike carapace of a body that was filled with
0:23:23 > 0:23:26extraordinary electric venom.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32Bourgeois was born in Paris on Christmas Day, 1911,
0:23:32 > 0:23:37and came to America on the eve of the Second World War.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Her life and work spanned the 20th century,
0:23:40 > 0:23:45and she counted Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol amongst her peers.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50Louise Bourgeois was undoubtedly one of the rediscoveries of that period.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53So although she was always there, she was never appreciated properly.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57And look how important her work is.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59And not only how important it is,
0:23:59 > 0:24:02but how directly it approaches women's issues.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06Feminine issues. Issues that are usually avoided by art.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Following Louise Bourgeois' late blooming in the art world,
0:24:22 > 0:24:26BBC's Arena flew to New York for a stormy encounter
0:24:26 > 0:24:28with this enigmatic figure.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52(MAN) Well, I can't agree to that.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56Don't be like that. Don't say that.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03What I'm trying to understand is why you're so...what it is you're
0:25:03 > 0:25:06so worried about me... (SIGHS)
0:25:06 > 0:25:08What it is you're resisting, really.
0:25:23 > 0:25:28Bourgeois' evocative work in stone, rubber and bronze focused
0:25:28 > 0:25:30almost entirely on the human body,
0:25:30 > 0:25:34made to seem disturbing, but oddly vulnerable.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38She put her heart and her soul into it
0:25:38 > 0:25:41and that is where Louise is a very strong woman.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45She used these fantastic materials, that were really heavy, that were
0:25:45 > 0:25:48really masculine, but uses them in a really feminine way.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50So there is a paradox there, which is exciting.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52And quite sexy and everything.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59Bourgeois may have come across as strong to some,
0:25:59 > 0:26:03but underneath the temper lay a hugely damaged individual.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10There it is. And the dealing with depression is really something
0:26:10 > 0:26:11that we better not talk about.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Do you use anger in a creative way?
0:26:19 > 0:26:23I use anger, it is raw, it is a raw emotion.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28It is my way of defending myself.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33Sometimes it frightens people, but it really doesn't frighten people.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36People take you for a pushover.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Bourgeois biggest inspiration was also the source of her
0:26:45 > 0:26:48greatest pain and anger - her childhood.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53You see, the human condition is the relationship of man to woman.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57I was brought up in a family where the violence was present
0:26:57 > 0:27:00and one of the things my mother did,
0:27:00 > 0:27:04when the anxiety of my father crept up, she knew that before every meal
0:27:04 > 0:27:08so she put a little pile of saucers next to his plate.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11- When anxiety came... - PLATE SMASHES
0:27:23 > 0:27:27While in her 80s, Bourgeois began obsessively revisiting
0:27:27 > 0:27:32and recreating her childhood home in a series of chambers
0:27:32 > 0:27:34she called "Cells".
0:27:34 > 0:27:38In order to liberate myself from the past, I have to reconstruct it,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42ponder about it. Make a statue out of it.
0:27:42 > 0:27:47And get rid of it, through making sculpture.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50I am able to forget it afterwards.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55I have paid my debt to the past and I am liberated.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58This is like a prison you have put it into?
0:27:58 > 0:28:03Yes, it is. It is. Because I am a prisoner of my memories.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11I have been a prisoner of my memories
0:28:11 > 0:28:13and my aim is to get rid of them.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30A few blocks from Bourgeois' Manhattan home,
0:28:30 > 0:28:34photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was also taking a renewed
0:28:34 > 0:28:37interest in the body - but in quite a different way.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42Twist your body around.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53These are images which cut into you consciousness
0:28:53 > 0:28:56and are there for the rest of your life.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59That is a great achievement with an artist.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10Mapplethorpe was much in demand for his cool, black and white
0:29:10 > 0:29:14celebrity portraits that caught the eye of the Manhattan elite.
0:29:14 > 0:29:19But this former altar boy's true notoriety came from feverishly
0:29:19 > 0:29:24documenting the extremes of New York's gay subcultures.
0:29:24 > 0:29:29These explicit erotic images, as starkly shot as any
0:29:29 > 0:29:33of his photographs of famous faces, outraged conservative America.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41As part of this process of people who'd been marginalised by the
0:29:41 > 0:29:49art world, all kinds of artists were finally allowed to have their say.
0:29:49 > 0:29:53Feminine artists were part of that and gay artists were part of that.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56Of course, there was plenty of homosexuality in art
0:29:56 > 0:29:58but it wasn't as explicit as it was in Mapplethorpe.
0:29:58 > 0:30:03In 1988 he was profiled by the BBC's Arena -
0:30:03 > 0:30:07a broadcast that had to be heavily censored.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12There was a feeling I could get looking at pornographic imagery
0:30:12 > 0:30:17that I thought had never been apparent in art.
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Did you set out to shock?
0:30:20 > 0:30:23No. No. I mean...
0:30:23 > 0:30:30No, I mean, it was too selfish. It was about me wanting to see things.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35It was certainly me first, and secondary to that was the audience.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38I was always amazed that it shocked.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41Because once I had a photograph, and had take it,
0:30:41 > 0:30:45it was not shocking to me any more, I'd been through the experience.
0:30:52 > 0:30:54Mapplethorpe successfully blurred the line
0:30:54 > 0:30:56between pornography and art.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00Yet, some of his most memorable images are not of people -
0:31:00 > 0:31:02but flowers.
0:31:04 > 0:31:05But the strange thing for me
0:31:05 > 0:31:09is they don't have any innocence about them, they have all kinds of...
0:31:09 > 0:31:14Yeah. It sort of amazes me. There is a certain edge to them.
0:31:14 > 0:31:19They are not...sweet.
0:31:19 > 0:31:24They have a certain...they're New York flowers, somehow.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26But again, I think they are mine.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29Nobody else can photograph flowers the way I do.
0:31:40 > 0:31:45Somehow I was able to pick up the magic of the moment
0:31:45 > 0:31:47and work with it.
0:31:47 > 0:31:49That is my rush in doing photography.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53You get to a place, and you can do it with a flower,
0:31:53 > 0:31:56you can do it with a cock, you can do it with a portrait
0:31:56 > 0:31:58where it's really kind of like,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01you don't know why it's happening but it's happening.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05You've somehow tapped into a space that's magic.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16Back in London, a British artist
0:32:16 > 0:32:19was also obsessively depicting the human body.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23Though a long way from the provocative images of Mapplethorpe,
0:32:23 > 0:32:28the work of Lucian Freud still had the power to startle,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31but with the traditional medium of paint on canvas.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39I remember Lucian Freud taking on the whole of art history.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42Unusually for a British painter,
0:32:42 > 0:32:47he was seeking to position himself in the canon.
0:32:47 > 0:32:50He was up there with the Rembrandts, the Rubens,
0:32:50 > 0:32:55the Michelangelos, the Picassos.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59He was trying to be an artist of that stature.
0:33:06 > 0:33:12Born in Berlin in 1922 to Sigmund Freud's youngest son Ernst,
0:33:12 > 0:33:15Freud fled to London with other Jewish refugees
0:33:15 > 0:33:16fleeing Nazi Germany.
0:33:19 > 0:33:24Freud had been a peripheral figure in art since the 1950s.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27He was best known for his hell-raiser lifestyle
0:33:27 > 0:33:30and friendship with fellow artist Francis Bacon.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32He was a troublemaker from the start.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34I think he was expelled from two schools,
0:33:34 > 0:33:36he burnt down the third school
0:33:36 > 0:33:39and he remained a troublemaker throughout his life, really.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42He was a big drinker, he was a reckless gambler.
0:33:44 > 0:33:49Freud's dazzling ability to evoke flesh in thick layers of paint
0:33:49 > 0:33:53came at a time when figurative painting was becoming popular again.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01Put your knee forward, yeah. Absolutely.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06This remarkable footage is the only known film of Lucian Freud working,
0:34:06 > 0:34:11shot in 2011 by assistant, David Dawson.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17It would be Freud's last day of painting before he died.
0:34:17 > 0:34:19Quite.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34This remarkable picture is one of a series of self portraits,
0:34:34 > 0:34:38as far as Freud was prepared to go in revealing himself.
0:34:38 > 0:34:43But in 1988, he broke his silence to speak to the BBC
0:34:43 > 0:34:44in a rare television interview.
0:34:47 > 0:34:51I never think about technique. In anything.
0:34:51 > 0:34:52I think it holds you up.
0:34:55 > 0:35:03I think if things look wrong or ugly in a way which actually clogs
0:35:03 > 0:35:10the information or feeling you are trying to convey
0:35:10 > 0:35:14then obviously you are going about it the wrong way.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18You have to take the paint on trust.
0:35:29 > 0:35:35You don't, as a rule, use models that work at being models.
0:35:35 > 0:35:40No, I haven't really because I quite like the idea of them posing
0:35:40 > 0:35:47being a specific part of something they are doing for me.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50With models, they would have an idea about posing in itself
0:35:50 > 0:35:53which is exactly what I am trying not to do.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55I want them to be themselves.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07In a career spanning almost 70 years, Freud is best known
0:36:07 > 0:36:12as the artist who brought nudes back into contemporary painting.
0:36:12 > 0:36:18The nude is page one, chapter one, paragraph one of what you do in art.
0:36:18 > 0:36:23It is the great classic subject of your old master painter.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27And by taking it on so directly, I think Freud was quite
0:36:27 > 0:36:30deliberately taking on the whole of art history.
0:36:36 > 0:36:38If you are painting humans,
0:36:38 > 0:36:40you've got the best subject matter in the world
0:36:40 > 0:36:48and you can really do as much with them as they could do themselves.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55And when I am not painting them, which is rare,
0:36:55 > 0:36:58I feel I am being pretty frivolous.
0:37:11 > 0:37:15The rebirth of figurative painting was not confined to
0:37:15 > 0:37:18the nudes of Lucian Freud.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21For one of Freud's contemporaries, painting was the perfect way
0:37:21 > 0:37:25to tell stories that explore the outer limits of human behaviour.
0:37:27 > 0:37:32Paula Rego was born in Lisbon in 1935 and like Freud,
0:37:32 > 0:37:36escaped fascism in her place of birth to settle in Britain.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42Similarly for Rego, the 1980s were a turning point
0:37:42 > 0:37:46as she discovered a new audience for her work.
0:37:46 > 0:37:52She goes into places that very people go in her work,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55with extraordinary vigour.
0:37:56 > 0:37:58People did not understand what she was doing.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01Then she sort of went to the backwater, now she has come
0:38:01 > 0:38:05to the forefront again because people want to be touched by something.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09People want some emotion. They don't want the white canvas any more.
0:38:21 > 0:38:25In London, Rego attended the Slade School of Art
0:38:25 > 0:38:29and developed a love for Victorian children's illustration,
0:38:29 > 0:38:31an influence that endures to this day.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39The way I paint, on the floor, is a bit like a playpen.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42You know, when you are little you are in the playpen
0:38:42 > 0:38:45and you've got all your toys around you so you take what you like
0:38:45 > 0:38:50and make stories with what you've got.
0:38:51 > 0:38:56I had a playroom where I was supposed to be most of the time.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00And, of course, I was on my own as I had no brothers or sisters.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03And I didn't know other children to play with.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06So I spent a lot of time in there, drawing.
0:39:06 > 0:39:10- My mother said she could hear me doing.... - SHE HUMS
0:39:10 > 0:39:12You know, this noise you make when you draw.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15- Even now, I do that. - SHE HUMS
0:39:15 > 0:39:19And if she heard that she knew I was all right.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23I think it was possibly quite a good training for a painter.
0:39:31 > 0:39:37She really does still have that quality of childlike immediacy
0:39:37 > 0:39:40without being naive or simple or anything at all.
0:39:40 > 0:39:47But the child figure is central to her imagination and her work.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52Rego's naive playfulness contrasts sharply with subject matter
0:39:52 > 0:39:56that often delves into the dark corners of her imagination.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05This is The Maids by Genet except it isn't entirely that.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08Because there's another character in it, the little girl,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11who does not appear in the Genet play.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13Well, she is about to do to this girl,
0:40:13 > 0:40:15I think she's just tickling her
0:40:15 > 0:40:18at the moment, I don't think it's anything too serious,
0:40:18 > 0:40:20but something horrible is going to happen.
0:40:28 > 0:40:34For me, pictures are better equivalents to feelings.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37I mean, I think that you can't...
0:40:37 > 0:40:41There are things you can't express obviously in words -
0:40:41 > 0:40:45which you don't even know what they are, really.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47Paula does not really give a damn what people think.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50She is just on her own trajectory. She's doing her own thing.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52And she always has been.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55We go to Paula's world. She doesn't have to come to ours.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01Rego's paintings are often based on her own experiences.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04Most personal of all, are a number of works
0:41:04 > 0:41:08reflecting on caring for her late husband, artist Victor Willing.
0:41:08 > 0:41:13My husband Vic was diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis in 1966,
0:41:13 > 0:41:17the same year my father died.
0:41:18 > 0:41:23Then as things got worse, I think really I was just terrified.
0:41:23 > 0:41:28So everything I did was in the pictures.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32The monkey beating his wife, and the bear and pregnant rabbit.
0:41:32 > 0:41:37And all that, it was not like keeping a diary
0:41:37 > 0:41:40but was like writing your own story in images.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52Victor's illness was perhaps most poignantly reflected in one
0:41:52 > 0:41:56of Rego's most striking works of the 1980s, The Family.
0:42:00 > 0:42:06For me, he is incredibly important in every way.
0:42:06 > 0:42:10My work is...I do it for him, number one.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38But the revolutionary spirit in art was far from over.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42In 1970s Germany, the country experienced its own
0:42:42 > 0:42:47renaissance of politics, arts and culture as the nation's youth
0:42:47 > 0:42:52sought to define a new identity and free itself from the Nazi past.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54One artist would emerge
0:42:54 > 0:42:58to put a face to the emotions of a generation.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03Joseph Beuys - anarchic, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09Joseph Beuys to me is a more mysterious person.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12To me, he is very inspirational.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15He was just an extraordinary character.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18Almost like he smelt differently.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23I think he really did take his role as a seer
0:43:23 > 0:43:26and teacher very seriously.
0:43:31 > 0:43:38Beuys defied categorisation, moving from sculpture to happenings
0:43:38 > 0:43:41and even politically charged pop songs.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47# But the people of the States don't want it
0:43:58 > 0:44:02On the BBC's art series Riverside in 1983,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05he claimed his art was directly shaped by his own
0:44:05 > 0:44:09experience as a Luftwaffe pilot during World War II.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14When I was shot down in the Crimea during the Second World War,
0:44:14 > 0:44:19I was rescued by tribespeople.
0:44:19 > 0:44:25They took me out of this crash heap of an airplane
0:44:25 > 0:44:28and brought me to felt tent.
0:44:28 > 0:44:33Wrapped me with felt and tallow, as an ointment, to keep me warm.
0:44:33 > 0:44:39This was an impulse for me to be reminded
0:44:39 > 0:44:42when later on I tried to develop a kind of theory.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45Especially a theory of warm sculpture.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55Beuys' near death experience shaped his career.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59Fat and felt - the materials he believed the tribesman used
0:44:59 > 0:45:04to save his life, resurfaced in many of his sculptural works.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Crucially, it was also this act of kindness that directly
0:45:08 > 0:45:11informed his sense that art had the power to heal.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36I think Joseph Beuys is more like a heroic poet.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40You can see this sincere ideology.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43He is trying to make the world become a better world.
0:45:45 > 0:45:50By the late 1970s, Beuys had become a global figure.
0:45:50 > 0:45:55The remainder of his career was spent as an art nomad -
0:45:55 > 0:46:00exhibiting, performing and staging happenings across the world.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03Such as the three days he spent in New York,
0:46:03 > 0:46:06locked inside a gallery with a wild coyote.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22A year before his death in 1986, Joseph Beuys came to London to
0:46:22 > 0:46:26mount his final political statement, Plight.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35The installation saw the entire Anthony D'Offay Gallery
0:46:35 > 0:46:40plastered floor to ceiling in reams of felt, with a grand piano,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43blackboard and thermometer as its centrepiece.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52When you were in the room, you heard your heart beating.
0:46:52 > 0:46:59You heard things in your body that you never experienced before.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02You felt as though you were in another world.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06As Beuys explained to the BBC, the work symbolised his belief in the
0:47:06 > 0:47:11transformative power of art against the negative forces of capitalism.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14Art is not there to be understood.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18Art is a thing you have to identify with.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23Art contains the elements of creativity that exist you,
0:47:23 > 0:47:31which is presently alienated by government over the people.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34From powers that are infiltrated by the media.
0:47:34 > 0:47:38The interest that come from the market, from capitalism,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42from the interest to make profit and to try to gain power.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53# The best things in life are free
0:47:53 > 0:47:57# But you can give them to the birds and bees
0:47:57 > 0:48:00- # I want money- That's what I want
0:48:00 > 0:48:02- # That's what I want - That's what I want... #
0:48:02 > 0:48:05Beuys was fighting a rearguard action
0:48:05 > 0:48:08against the advance of capitalism.
0:48:08 > 0:48:13The stock market boom of the 1980s saw money pour into the art world
0:48:13 > 0:48:18as traders looked to modern art as a safe investment
0:48:18 > 0:48:19for their newfound wealth.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23£7 million.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29Cometh the hour, cometh the man
0:48:29 > 0:48:31I am a very clever person.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35I think I could be making even more money in another field.
0:48:35 > 0:48:36In another area.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39I am limited to the income I can have as an artist.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43I could make maybe several million year, if I am extremely successful
0:48:43 > 0:48:46but I could never come into the hundred million a year range,
0:48:46 > 0:48:48the half a billion a year range.
0:48:53 > 0:48:57For the past 30 years, Jeff Koons has cultivated
0:48:57 > 0:49:00a reputation for pushing taste to the limit.
0:49:00 > 0:49:05He specialises in turning everyday objects into high art
0:49:05 > 0:49:10by hiring skilled craftsman to turn his ideas into expensive sculptures.
0:49:13 > 0:49:17To cover the heavy costs of creating his early work,
0:49:17 > 0:49:21Koons spent six years as a commodities trader on Wall Street.
0:49:21 > 0:49:25At the same time, by his own admission,
0:49:25 > 0:49:29he began to manipulate the art market in his favour.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34A piece like my Aqua Lung that may have cost 20,000 to make,
0:49:34 > 0:49:36I would sell for 4,000.
0:49:36 > 0:49:39And then end up giving the gallery a 50% cut of that
0:49:39 > 0:49:44and walking away with 2,000, taking a 17-18,000 loss on a piece.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48But I did that only because I wanted them to go to collections
0:49:48 > 0:49:51and if I was going to penetrate, it was time to penetrate.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54When Jeff Koons arrived, everybody said the same thing -
0:49:54 > 0:49:58he is a merchant banker and has decided to become an artist.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02So he has brought all the know how of the Wall Street operator to art.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05And so, right from the beginning,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08from the very first mention of Jeff Koons, there was suspicion.
0:50:08 > 0:50:13Certainly art critic Robert Hughes, needed some convincing
0:50:13 > 0:50:16when he met Koons for the BBC in 1996.
0:50:18 > 0:50:22Hi, Jeff. A kitten in a giant sock. Tell me about it.
0:50:22 > 0:50:26It is a piece working in a very classical
0:50:26 > 0:50:28tradition of the crucifixion.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31And also dealing with spiritual themes.
0:50:31 > 0:50:33Well, I don't see much spirituality there yet.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37I see a very large and playful pussycat in a sock.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40How are you going to inject spirituality into this image?
0:50:40 > 0:50:44I am going to give the cat more Bambi-like eye lashes.
0:50:44 > 0:50:45Very spiritual, Bambi, yeah.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47I try to make works that are...
0:50:47 > 0:50:49that are very generous.
0:50:49 > 0:50:51I try to be as generous as I can be with myself.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53What do you mean by "generous"?
0:50:53 > 0:50:57How is this more generous than some other of kind of sculpture?
0:50:57 > 0:50:59What's generous about it?
0:50:59 > 0:51:04I think it is communicating love, it's communicating happiness.
0:51:04 > 0:51:06And it does not alienate anyone.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09I think that a young child could come here, a five-year-old child,
0:51:09 > 0:51:12could look and find some pleasure and some enjoyment.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16And I hope it is something positive for humankind.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23Koons' most memorable work was also his first financial
0:51:23 > 0:51:27breakthrough, the Banality Series that began in 1988.
0:51:29 > 0:51:34The series saw the kind of kitsch objects found in gift shops
0:51:34 > 0:51:38spun into oversized sculptures, that divided critics.
0:51:42 > 0:51:47I was very pleased with the response to the work.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51I was glad that the work did generate a response
0:51:51 > 0:51:54and did not go unnoticed.
0:51:54 > 0:51:58These images of banality and dislocated imagery
0:51:58 > 0:52:01is what the bourgeois respond to.
0:52:01 > 0:52:06This is what the ads they respond to in Vogue magazine are based on.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10But at the same time, they also feel the guilt and shame of this.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17As Koons' self-produced adverts showed, he was a new type of artist,
0:52:17 > 0:52:21unashamed about his desire to make money from art.
0:52:22 > 0:52:28By the end of the 1980s, the boom years were well and truly over.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39Across the Atlantic, Thatcher's Britain seemed a divided land.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44The shift of money and power to the masters of global finance
0:52:44 > 0:52:48left many workers feeling marginalised or excluded.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55The British art world was no different, dominated
0:52:55 > 0:52:59by a handful of galleries that ignored the work of younger artists.
0:52:59 > 0:53:04It was time to rediscover the radicalism of previous generations.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19We all think that Damien Hirst was always a gigantic figure.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22Well, no, he wasn't in the beginning, he was a nobody.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27And yet, this nobody took on the art world in a most explicit way.
0:53:31 > 0:53:36In 1988, Damien Hirst was just another ambitious art student
0:53:36 > 0:53:41when he organised Freeze, a showcase of talent from Goldsmiths College.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45And the BBC were intrigued enough to send
0:53:45 > 0:53:49the Late Show's Matthew Collings to meet a 23-year-old Damien Hirst.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54So what does everyone at the school think?
0:53:54 > 0:53:56Well, there is a bit of mixed feelings.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59It's separated the school into two halves.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02A lot of people are anti-Freeze and a lot of people are for it.
0:54:02 > 0:54:04The ones who are anti-Freeze, why are they that?
0:54:04 > 0:54:08I don't know, any kind of success, people don't like it, do they?
0:54:12 > 0:54:14The art world was Thatcherite.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16The art world was the world that said,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19these are the rules, and if you don't do it this way,
0:54:19 > 0:54:21you are going to have your bottom spanked.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24And he comes along and he does it differently.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27It was a rebellion, a revolt.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37Bypassing the traditional gallery system,
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Damien Hirst and the other 15 artists featured at Freeze
0:54:41 > 0:54:44would be propelled into the art world spotlight,
0:54:44 > 0:54:49to become known as the YBAs or the Young British Artists.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54Not many people got the fact that Damien was going to be the biggest,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58and most ambitious, and the most creative artist of them all.
0:55:08 > 0:55:09Why did they shoot it?
0:55:09 > 0:55:12To kill it!
0:55:12 > 0:55:13To kill it!
0:55:13 > 0:55:17She had a calf and she never got over calving.
0:55:17 > 0:55:18Oh, right.
0:55:25 > 0:55:30In the early 1990s, Hirst began a series of now iconic works
0:55:30 > 0:55:33that thrilled some and appalled others,
0:55:33 > 0:55:37featuring dead animals in various states of decomposition.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41Should we go get a burger?
0:55:41 > 0:55:44The works were an instant sensation.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48One of the most celebrated, Mother and Child Divided,
0:55:48 > 0:55:51made its debut at the prestigious Venice Biennale.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59HE MOOS
0:55:59 > 0:56:03What is art for me? I think that is quite a difficult question.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06I think people who say that what I do is not art,
0:56:06 > 0:56:09it is very easy I think to say what isn't
0:56:09 > 0:56:12but it's very difficult to actually do something.
0:56:12 > 0:56:14People who don't even like art, they go, ooh.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17It's just an interesting object. I hope it makes the world richer.
0:56:17 > 0:56:19People like to see things like that.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22I don't expect them to walk in and go, "Ooh, life and death."
0:56:22 > 0:56:25Or, "Oh, my God, it is about the texture of ennui
0:56:25 > 0:56:27"and the quality of life and the horrific society."
0:56:27 > 0:56:30If they go, "Ooh, wow, that's fantastic, I am really pleased."
0:56:30 > 0:56:33I think it should work on many levels like that.
0:56:39 > 0:56:43Part of a wider shift that saw yesterday's rebels become
0:56:43 > 0:56:48today's mainstream, Hirst, the former enfant terrible has
0:56:48 > 0:56:52become the most famous and wealthiest artist in the world.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58Here in Britain, his many works on the theme of life and death
0:56:58 > 0:57:01have transformed him into a household name.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06And they marked a turning point for the way we,
0:57:06 > 0:57:10as a nation, engage with contemporary art.
0:57:10 > 0:57:16Artists used to be minor figures working away in their attics,
0:57:16 > 0:57:20unnoticed, and then suddenly that changed
0:57:20 > 0:57:23I now declare the Tate Modern open.
0:57:28 > 0:57:34Britain, a nation of art haters, turned into a nation of art lovers.
0:57:34 > 0:57:38The big change in my lifetime about contemporary art in this country
0:57:38 > 0:57:41is that a lot more people are interested in it.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44Most people now, if you say, "Damien Hirst's shark" to them,
0:57:44 > 0:57:47they'd probably know what you are talking about.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50Thank God, I'm in a period when art has a bigger audience.
0:57:54 > 0:57:59Art moved from the back pages of the newspapers to the front page.
0:58:02 > 0:58:06And that has unquestionably been the big story of art in my lifetime.
0:58:33 > 0:58:40Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd