0:00:30 > 0:00:34This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:38 > 0:00:43When you have had a moment
0:00:43 > 0:00:48that brings what mystics might call a beatitude,
0:00:48 > 0:00:52when you are suddenly
0:00:52 > 0:00:56and unexpectedly given access
0:00:56 > 0:01:01to an experience that alters your view of the world,
0:01:01 > 0:01:04it gives you a taste of freedom,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06of freedom of thought.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14I had such a moment as a child in York Minster.
0:01:14 > 0:01:20I had a moment where I felt the combination
0:01:20 > 0:01:23of architecture
0:01:23 > 0:01:25and light
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and art
0:01:27 > 0:01:31could give you a glimpse into paradise.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35They're not frequent, such experiences,
0:01:35 > 0:01:40but by constantly producing art day after day in a routine,
0:01:40 > 0:01:44you are always trying to get close...
0:01:46 > 0:01:48..to that experience again.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16Brian Clarke is a Renaissance man.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19His interests range far and wide.
0:02:19 > 0:02:25Steeped in tradition, he's also passionate about seeking new ways of making art.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29He draws, paints and designs spectacular stained glass.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32His work can be seen all over the world
0:02:32 > 0:02:35in churches, mosques and synagogues,
0:02:35 > 0:02:39private homes, hospitals and corporate headquarters.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44He has continued over the years to reinvent a medium he has made wholly his own.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03APPLAUSE
0:03:07 > 0:03:11My interests are undoubtedly architectural, but I am an artist.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16I'm not an architect. I don't aspire to being an architect.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18I remember Cedric Price introducing me
0:03:18 > 0:03:25as "a person who colours in the holes that architects leave in their walls".
0:03:25 > 0:03:28He's about right. That's more or less what I do.
0:03:28 > 0:03:32What motivates me is the big idea behind architecture.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36It's really architecture as a cradle for
0:03:36 > 0:03:42and trigger for artistic experience, poetic experience that I'm about.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46This is actually the Victoria Quarter in Leeds,
0:03:46 > 0:03:48an urban city street
0:03:48 > 0:03:53designed by that great Edwardian, theatrical architect Frank Matcham.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57My commission actually was to design the stained-glass window
0:03:57 > 0:04:00for this lower thing here at each end of the street.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04And I suggested they cover the street with glazing
0:04:04 > 0:04:08and I put a skin of colour across it.
0:04:30 > 0:04:35If I am doing a big project, I take in all the clues
0:04:35 > 0:04:38that the architect would take in about the location.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43You think about the movement of people and the passage of light through it,
0:04:43 > 0:04:50about the function of the building, the time of day it will be used, how many people will be using it
0:04:50 > 0:04:53and essentially, in a public experience,
0:04:53 > 0:04:59you want to provide a sensation that uplifts the spirits.
0:04:59 > 0:05:05And I feel naturally inclined to optimism when I'm working in public buildings.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12Some of his great works are those great arcades.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16They're wonderful things, brilliant use of the space,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19and he's sensitive to the historical context,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22yet being modern and uncompromising in his way.
0:05:23 > 0:05:28There always is this duality between order and chaos in Brian's work.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31The grid and the free line, the geometry of the grid
0:05:31 > 0:05:34and the free and maybe nervous line...
0:05:34 > 0:05:40There's a nervous kind of energy and enthusiasm and it's an absolute reflection of him as a person.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42It's his life in a way.
0:05:52 > 0:05:58This is the Shard going up in London. I think it's going to be the tallest building in Europe.
0:05:58 > 0:06:03I've been asked to do something between the two buildings of this development by Renzo Piano
0:06:03 > 0:06:07and that's the entrance to London Bridge station,
0:06:07 > 0:06:12so there'll be huge pedestrian traffic crossing this space all day long,
0:06:12 > 0:06:17and it's got to be something I felt that kept the language of the Shard.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20So I thought of the idea...
0:06:20 > 0:06:25At first it seemed like a silly idea, perhaps rather banal,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29but I've grown rather fond of the concept
0:06:29 > 0:06:34and that is the idea that just some shards of glass from the top of the structure,
0:06:34 > 0:06:41as if they had fallen down and just penetrated the, uh...ground level.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44I'll take this guy from here and put him here.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49Actually, it's Mr Gandhi. I don't know what he's doing there.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52As Mahatma makes his way through this space,
0:06:52 > 0:06:56by day, you'll get this kind of sunlight passing through it,
0:06:56 > 0:06:58and by night, lit from within,
0:06:58 > 0:07:02it will glow and be visible from all the viewing corridors
0:07:02 > 0:07:05as you approach London Bridge station.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09It will be like a cathedral of colour.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20Clarke's considerable earnings from large-scale commissions have supported his work
0:07:20 > 0:07:24as a painter and cutting-edge stained glass artist
0:07:24 > 0:07:28and allowed him to remain a fiercely independent artist.
0:07:36 > 0:07:42I realised very early on in the game that...
0:07:43 > 0:07:51..however beguiling and beautiful and transcendentally enriching to one's life stained glass is,
0:07:51 > 0:07:54without the nourishment of...
0:07:54 > 0:07:58and discipline of painting and drawing,
0:07:58 > 0:08:00it became purely decorative.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06He does really beautiful drawings
0:08:06 > 0:08:10and not many people have that incredible control of the hand.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13I've always liked his glasswork
0:08:13 > 0:08:17and they could be quite abstract, they're very varied,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21but the quality of the hand is always there and it's stunning.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31It's always been so important for him to never have stopped painting.
0:08:33 > 0:08:38Even at his most successful, busy, whichever way you want to put it,
0:08:38 > 0:08:44his time as a stained glass artist when he was involved with huge projects on a pretty constant basis,
0:08:44 > 0:08:46he was still always painting.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53He... And this has confounded many of his critics, I think.
0:08:53 > 0:08:58He's been always almost equally a painter and a stained glass artist.
0:08:58 > 0:09:03He never would have put stained glass on a lower level than painting
0:09:03 > 0:09:05and vice-versa, of course.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31What's the name of the place we're going to?
0:09:31 > 0:09:36Clarksfield Road and I know it's that way.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46My mum and dad were married at this church.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06Yeah, this is the house I lived in where these people are.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09That was my old house - number 103.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11Hello. Sorry to disturb you.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14I used to live here when I was a little boy.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17Oh, yeah, I think I put those tiles up.
0:10:17 > 0:10:22- You didn't?- I think I did. - LAUGHTER
0:10:22 > 0:10:27There was a wall here and we used to kill mice with the handle of a screwdriver.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29There was a range here.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33- Everything's changed here now. - Yeah, yeah.
0:10:33 > 0:10:38- I used to live here when I was your age.- No?- Yeah, I did.
0:10:49 > 0:10:54My mum was born in 1919 and she was one of eight sisters,
0:10:54 > 0:10:56two of whom survive her,
0:10:56 > 0:11:01and they all worked in the cotton mills in Lancashire. One brother.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07My dad was particularly good at marquetry.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10I suppose it's a little bit like stained glass.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15You split tonally up the colours by using veneers of different woods.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17It's like making a collage
0:11:17 > 0:11:22and I very much enjoyed doing those things with him.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27And it's the first memory I have of the creative process.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32He died...very young.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37You know, the emphysema from coal mining
0:11:37 > 0:11:42and...60 or 80 Woodbines a day
0:11:42 > 0:11:45didn't help him with longevity.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48I was young when he died. I was with him.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52And it had a deep impact on me.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56I hadn't realised really how close I was to him.
0:12:20 > 0:12:26I came out of what sociologists would call an extended matriarchal, working-class family.
0:12:26 > 0:12:34Doris, Mary and Anne remained unmarried and so they lived together with my grandmother.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40And so I was fussed around by a lot of aunties and females.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43And thoroughly enjoyed it.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47- What was he like as a lad?- Pardon? - What was Brian like as a lad?
0:12:47 > 0:12:51- What was he like?- Yes. - Well, he was always joking,
0:12:51 > 0:12:53acting the fool, you know.
0:12:54 > 0:13:00When he were 14, we took him away on holiday, me and our Doris, to Majorca.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04That's me and our Brian in Majorca.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11We came back to the hotel and there was a lady behind the bar and he went to the bar.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15We didn't know what he'd gone for. Then she came back to us. She said,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19"Do you know he's ordered a bottle of champagne for you?
0:13:19 > 0:13:22"But I don't know what to do." He were only 14.
0:13:22 > 0:13:27I said, "If he's ordered it, he'll pay for it. It'll be all right."
0:13:27 > 0:13:32He did, he ordered it. Because we took him, he were buying us champagne as a thank you.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34It were lovely, that.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Every time we went anywhere with taxis
0:13:38 > 0:13:41and he wanted to tip the driver, he wanted to pay...
0:13:41 > 0:13:45He wanted to pay, so he could tip the driver.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49- You always wanted to be the big man, didn't you?- Yeah.
0:13:49 > 0:13:56We've all been very close, all the family, and we've all loved each other and been kind to each other.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59That's as it should be, isn't it?
0:13:59 > 0:14:02- We've always been close, Brian. - What, us?
0:14:02 > 0:14:04LAUGHTER
0:14:07 > 0:14:10My grandmother was a medium
0:14:10 > 0:14:14and spiritualism was the background to my childhood.
0:14:14 > 0:14:20And I rather liked this magical, alchemical, weird thing
0:14:20 > 0:14:24that she brought in to my humdrum life.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29You know, she claimed to be able to see into the future.
0:14:30 > 0:14:36I was deeply excited by the idea of life after death.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41And so the whole spiritualism thing took a hold of me.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46I was trained as a teenager in spiritualism,
0:14:46 > 0:14:50but a point came when I had to make a choice -
0:14:50 > 0:14:54do I continue this interest in spiritualism
0:14:54 > 0:15:01or do I go for the really high level game of mediumship which is being an artist?
0:15:01 > 0:15:06I had already committed myself as a child of ten to wanting to be an artist.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11I had a romantic idea that art happened in Paris, that Picasso equated to art
0:15:11 > 0:15:14and I would do whatever I could to get there.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18At the age of 12, that included robbing a gas meter
0:15:18 > 0:15:23and using the shillings to buy a ticket to Paris at Oldham West railway station.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28The ticket collector smelling a rat, seeing all these shilling coins, called the police,
0:15:28 > 0:15:33I never got to Paris, but I did later on get to Oldham Art School.
0:15:33 > 0:15:35Clarke was something of a prodigy.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38He was able to concentrate on art from the age of 12
0:15:38 > 0:15:43as he'd won a scholarship to the Oldham School of Arts and Crafts,
0:15:43 > 0:15:49one of a number of specialist schools that had been set up by philanthropists in northern England.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53This half of the building was the School of Art.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56And this is the room...
0:15:56 > 0:15:59This was kind of our classroom, I suppose.
0:15:59 > 0:16:01And that's where we drew.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06I had a really great education in the arts.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10I learned how to draw analytically, heraldry, book-binding,
0:16:10 > 0:16:14calligraphy, sign-writing, pigment mixing.
0:16:14 > 0:16:19It was a very broad and old-fashioned arts and crafts education.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24There used to be an old guy sitting here.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28I think he was called Alf.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32I couldn't get enough. I used to sleep in the art school.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36I used to hide and sleep in the school, so that I could work at night.
0:16:36 > 0:16:44Look, here it is. "Devoted to the moral and intellectual culture of the inhabitants of Oldham."
0:16:44 > 0:16:48The architect was Pennington. "School of Science and Art."
0:16:50 > 0:16:54Living in Oldham was undeniably grim.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00But it had something that transcended industrial Lancashire
0:17:00 > 0:17:05and that was the architecture of the cotton mills. They were majestic.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18You see, in any direction, you could look out and see those mills.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20The town centre is on a hill
0:17:20 > 0:17:25and you could look out and see these great, horizontal red buildings
0:17:25 > 0:17:28with masses of windows,
0:17:28 > 0:17:34then they usually had a rather smart or swanky tower with the mill name on it
0:17:34 > 0:17:36and then a tall chimney.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43The art school education I got in Oldham
0:17:43 > 0:17:46prepared me for life as an artist
0:17:46 > 0:17:51and prepared me for an understanding
0:17:51 > 0:17:55that there is a great deal more to life than...
0:17:57 > 0:17:59..materialistic issues
0:17:59 > 0:18:06and that there can be poetry come out of even the darkest, grimmest mill town.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17From Oldham, Clarke moved to Burnley School of Art.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19It was here that he met Liz Finch.
0:18:19 > 0:18:25She was soon to become an essential influence on his development as an artist.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28When I first met him, I think I must have been 17
0:18:28 > 0:18:33because I think he lied to get into college about his age, and he was 15, I think.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36He was really serious and quiet
0:18:36 > 0:18:40and he didn't sort of hang out or go to pubs and things,
0:18:40 > 0:18:42but he used to do a lot of work.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48It was the late '60s, so art students always had long hair and he had short hair.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51And he wore a shirt and tie.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Then he did grow long hair eventually.
0:18:55 > 0:19:00Liz's father was a vicar with a particular enthusiasm for stained glass.
0:19:01 > 0:19:05He had a stained-glass window installed in his church
0:19:05 > 0:19:08by an artist from York called Harry Harvey.
0:19:09 > 0:19:14And whilst it wasn't... my cup of tea,
0:19:14 > 0:19:17I realised through that
0:19:17 > 0:19:21that the medium might have a place
0:19:21 > 0:19:23in my world,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27in my dual interests - art and architecture.
0:19:27 > 0:19:33Clarke and Liz Finch enrolled on the Stained Glass course at North Devon College in Bideford.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35They married in 1972.
0:19:35 > 0:19:41Later, they moved to Preston where Clarke started to work as a stained glass artist,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44making his early work with his own hands
0:19:44 > 0:19:48and receiving commissions from local churches and private clients.
0:19:48 > 0:19:54His first major breakthrough, at the age of 19, came at a church in Lancashire.
0:20:11 > 0:20:16Longridge was a whole series of windows on the upper gallery of the church
0:20:16 > 0:20:19that had particularly good light
0:20:19 > 0:20:23because there was nothing interrupting the light
0:20:23 > 0:20:27on either the north or the south walls of the church.
0:20:27 > 0:20:33And it was the first time anybody had asked me to do a suite of windows,
0:20:33 > 0:20:35rather than an individual thing.
0:20:38 > 0:20:44There wasn't any stained glass in those days that used such big sheets of colour.
0:20:45 > 0:20:51I'd based the thing on the kind of green and blue of those wonderful hills and reservoirs
0:20:51 > 0:20:54that exist around that part of Lancashire.
0:20:54 > 0:20:59It was really just a very youthful, joyous...
0:21:01 > 0:21:05..celebration of the medium in a building.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16I think that was the first time
0:21:16 > 0:21:19I really knew
0:21:19 > 0:21:22that I wanted to alter the building,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26I wanted to make a contribution to the building as a whole.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35I got a few other opportunities in Lancashire
0:21:35 > 0:21:40and by the time I'd done three projects where I'd done all the windows,
0:21:40 > 0:21:46my hunger for architectural experience and scale
0:21:46 > 0:21:48knew no limits.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53At the age of 20, Clarke won a prestigious Churchill Fellowship
0:21:53 > 0:21:57that allowed him to travel in Europe and the USA.
0:21:57 > 0:22:02This time broadened his sense of what an artist could bring to stained glass.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08Matisse did something that was really quite unique.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12He created the illusion
0:22:12 > 0:22:16that there are three layers of activity going on -
0:22:16 > 0:22:20a base field, a secondary layer of ornament
0:22:20 > 0:22:24and then another layer of ornament on top of that.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28But I would place Schreiter as the greatest designer
0:22:28 > 0:22:31of stained glass in the 20th century.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36He was for me the man who most consequentially and compellingly
0:22:36 > 0:22:42liberated lead from being the structural means of holding pieces of glass together
0:22:42 > 0:22:47to being in itself an independent means of expression.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02I used to love it.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04I used to so love it here.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08This vicarage became vacant.
0:23:09 > 0:23:15And I went to see the local diocesan authorities.
0:23:15 > 0:23:20I kind of told them that it was essential that they support me
0:23:20 > 0:23:24because the stained glass was about to evaporate
0:23:24 > 0:23:26and I was its only hope.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30And, uh...they bought it.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33That was my studio and that's where I painted.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37And Liz's studio was the room with all the ivy round it there.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40It was a very strange time.
0:23:40 > 0:23:46It was only four years, but you always used to feel that time had stood still,
0:23:46 > 0:23:50so when you went out, it was a bit sort of scary
0:23:50 > 0:23:55like you were in a huge dome of time or something.
0:23:55 > 0:24:00I was once having a meeting in that room with a bishop from Nottingham
0:24:00 > 0:24:02and three other leading clergymen.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06And Liz thought it was far too formal.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09She had a doll and she tied a rope to its foot
0:24:09 > 0:24:14and swung it in front of the window, just out of the window above.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17The clergymen didn't actually say anything,
0:24:17 > 0:24:24but you could see that they had just seen a baby swinging by its leg...pass the window.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28Liz kind of ruled it here really with her freaky stuff.
0:24:29 > 0:24:36Liz was then and is now without any guile or affectation
0:24:36 > 0:24:38absolutely an artist.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43If you're exposed to that at an intense level, it rubs off.
0:24:43 > 0:24:50And I think Liz gave me tremendous confidence to be who I am
0:24:50 > 0:24:55because that was who she was and I loved who she was.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00He was and still is in total admiration of her very strange and wonderful mind.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05He's always seen her as a kind of natural piece of Dada art,
0:25:05 > 0:25:09as a Dadaist sort of incarnate as a human being.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12If she thought Brian was getting big for his boots,
0:25:12 > 0:25:16she could pierce pretentiousness better than anyone.
0:25:17 > 0:25:23During his years in the Peak District, Clarke painted and continued to design stained glass.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26Birchover may have been very remote,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29but Clarke's ambitions ranged further afield.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Driven by an unstoppable sense of his own destiny
0:25:33 > 0:25:39and an instinct for the right openings, he began making contacts in London and beyond,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42carefully laying the ground for an attack on the art world.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45His reputation grew remarkably fast.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51MUSIC: "Anarchy In The UK" - Sex Pistols
0:25:51 > 0:25:54# Right now... #
0:25:54 > 0:26:00In 1976, punk rock happened and he very much identified with all of that.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03# I am an anti-Christ
0:26:03 > 0:26:07# And I am an anarchist
0:26:07 > 0:26:11# Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it
0:26:11 > 0:26:15# I wanna destroy the passer-by
0:26:15 > 0:26:21# Cos I wanna be
0:26:21 > 0:26:25# Anarchy
0:26:25 > 0:26:28# No dogsbody... #
0:26:28 > 0:26:33Brian Clarke's meteoric rise, fuelled by punk energy, took London by storm.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37He worked with trendy dealer Robert Fraser
0:26:37 > 0:26:41who introduced him to art lovers from the world of rock'n'roll.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44He also walked into the offices of the BBC
0:26:44 > 0:26:50and sweet-talked them into making a film about the super-charged launch of his brilliant career.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57His supreme confidence was a striking characteristic
0:26:57 > 0:27:01and he had detractors precisely because of that.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06I remember we did an exhibition of stained glass in London in 1978
0:27:06 > 0:27:12and he gave a talk to a large and quite sort of distinguished audience in that
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and he was a bit more like a rock star giving it.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18But what he said was still very articulate.
0:27:20 > 0:27:25He adapted very well to the social thing.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28It was like he'd found his element really.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31He did hang out with a lot of celebrities.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35I think that there is a thing among celebrities,
0:27:35 > 0:27:39an insecurity that they like to hang out with each other.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47He was certainly a bad boy,
0:27:47 > 0:27:50irreverent, let's say.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54I think he managed to shock the clergy more than once.
0:27:54 > 0:27:59He did two wonderful designs for Derby Cathedral.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01You can imagine for someone of 22, 23,
0:28:01 > 0:28:06two huge windows in a classical cathedral by the architect James Gibbs
0:28:06 > 0:28:10of whom Brian was and still is a huge admirer...
0:28:10 > 0:28:16He put everything into it, then the cathedral's advisory committee intervened.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21They expressed great admiration for his designs, but wanted him to modify his colours.
0:28:21 > 0:28:28His rather terse reply to them, it was two words, effectively ended his relationship with the church.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32- Words that I can guess? - The words you can guess.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36I saw the postcard, so I know it's true.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40I lose more commissions than I do.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45I mean, for every one I do, there are two that I don't do.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48I'm often told by people that I ought to compromise,
0:28:48 > 0:28:54that these days, you can't afford to refuse commissions, you can't afford to upset people.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58I think that you can't afford to compromise.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02If you're making a statement artistically,
0:29:02 > 0:29:08when you're making that statement, as far as you're concerned, it's an absolute.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11And any variation
0:29:11 > 0:29:13or dilution
0:29:13 > 0:29:17or subtraction from an absolute
0:29:17 > 0:29:23makes it less than absolute and therefore makes it untrue and, by definition, a lie.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27And I am not a perpetrator of visual lies.
0:29:27 > 0:29:31It became very clear quite early on in the game
0:29:31 > 0:29:35that, on the one hand,
0:29:36 > 0:29:41the church was the traditional cradle of the medium,
0:29:41 > 0:29:48but on the other hand we were becoming increasingly a secular society.
0:29:49 > 0:29:53And if stained glass had any hope of continuance,
0:29:53 > 0:30:00and I had any hope of continuing using the medium and responding to its challenges,
0:30:00 > 0:30:04then I had to focus my activities
0:30:04 > 0:30:06on secular buildings.
0:30:07 > 0:30:12Over the next 20 or so years, Brian Clarke took on a series
0:30:12 > 0:30:18of increasingly ambitious stained glass commissions in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Brazil and the USA.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30I began to work with a whole group of very interesting architects
0:30:30 > 0:30:34and here's a project Arata Isozaki and I did in Tokyo -
0:30:34 > 0:30:40the Lake Sagami building, which is, essentially, in the plan, like a Gothic church
0:30:40 > 0:30:44with a considerable nave and choir
0:30:44 > 0:30:49and what would have been a central bell tower. We turned this tower
0:30:49 > 0:30:53into something that could glow at night.
0:30:54 > 0:30:59This is the headquarters of Pfizer in New York.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03As Pfizer are a pharmaceutical firm, I included
0:31:03 > 0:31:09all kinds of things from microscopic explorations into the nature of health.
0:31:10 > 0:31:18When it was installed, the Chief Executive and Chairman and board came to their first viewing
0:31:18 > 0:31:23and were very happy with the sheer decorative beauty of these forms,
0:31:23 > 0:31:26made in a medieval way, etched glass, very complex,
0:31:26 > 0:31:31made in exactly the same way as glass at Chartres or Canterbury.
0:31:31 > 0:31:37I think it took them slightly aback when I explained that they are all HIV cells from healthy cells,
0:31:37 > 0:31:44and as you walk from the lobby into the main hall, you move from HIV to terminal cancer.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46LAUGHTER
0:31:47 > 0:31:52'There are certain people that I would not work for.'
0:31:52 > 0:31:57Quite often, I see clients as the enemy. I think a lot of architects do
0:31:57 > 0:32:03and a lot of artists do. It's not uncommon because it's a battle to get...
0:32:04 > 0:32:08You would think that they would want the best quality they could get,
0:32:08 > 0:32:14but what they usually want is something median, something average, something banal
0:32:14 > 0:32:17something they've seen before.
0:32:17 > 0:32:23This is where stained glass started to influence the painting instead of the other way round.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27My paintings took the lead from discoveries made in the glass.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32The lines of white being negative version of a black lead line.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36And, of course, the window, the cross contained within a square,
0:32:36 > 0:32:42a simple sash window frame, becoming a symbol for what I think art is about.
0:32:42 > 0:32:49It's my suggestion that art opens a window onto an alternative reality.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54And I think that so long as artists stand as the alternative,
0:32:54 > 0:32:59no matter what that means and costs, we have a role and a function to fulfil.
0:33:26 > 0:33:32The stained glass, the drawing and the painting, there is no distinction to be made.
0:33:32 > 0:33:38It's a symbiotic thing. They're all mutually beneficial. They do inform one another entirely.
0:33:38 > 0:33:43And the one partly depends on the other, grows from the other.
0:33:43 > 0:33:49The seemingly random linear element, the line that wanders through and breaks,
0:33:49 > 0:33:53that certainly appears in his paintings, but I suspect
0:33:53 > 0:33:59because it came from the language originally of the lead line in stained glass,
0:33:59 > 0:34:01I suspect it originated there.
0:35:23 > 0:35:30I'm sorry. I've lost my fucking glasses again. Can you try in my jacket pocket upstairs?
0:35:32 > 0:35:35- Not there.- No?
0:35:35 > 0:35:38Downstairs in the plan chest room?
0:35:40 > 0:35:43I despair at my memory.
0:35:43 > 0:35:49Amanda bought me a string to put round my neck, but I felt like Marje Proops.
0:35:49 > 0:35:56- I'm going to have to be dealt with. Know what we should do with them? - Destroy them.- No, I want new lenses.
0:35:57 > 0:36:03- But I am buggered if I don't have a pair of specs. - You mean these?- Ohhh!
0:36:03 > 0:36:07You know what you're going to get for that?
0:36:08 > 0:36:10Ahhh!
0:36:16 > 0:36:18This is going all terribly wrong.
0:36:19 > 0:36:25This always happens with the Christmas cards. It is sent to be my annual torment.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29You can't say Lord Richard Rogers. It's Lord Rogers or Richard Rogers.
0:36:29 > 0:36:33That's like what an American would say.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36Can you get my pen? I think I took it back downstairs.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41Thank you. ..Larry Inginor.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46The McCartneys are legion! They go on forever, don't they?
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Has Dennis got two Ns in it?
0:36:49 > 0:36:51# Nightclubbing
0:36:51 > 0:36:55# We're nightclubbing
0:36:55 > 0:37:01- # We're what's happening... # - Listen, these people are all very nice,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04- but...- You want me to sign them? - That's what I'm doing.
0:37:04 > 0:37:10You have to make sure these go in the right ones. I've written, "Sod off!" to Andy.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13It wouldn't be very nice if that went to...
0:37:13 > 0:37:18# New people They're something to see... #
0:37:20 > 0:37:23Oh, I feel like Saint Sebastian.
0:37:25 > 0:37:30There was certainly a period of...20 years
0:37:30 > 0:37:37when I never even responded to an inquiry to do something in a church.
0:37:37 > 0:37:44But I did do a huge mosque in Saudi Arabia and a number of synagogues, but not any churches.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48And then the one at Romont came up.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN:
0:38:43 > 0:38:46When I went to visit it,
0:38:46 > 0:38:52I went really, to be honest, with the intention of politely getting out of it.
0:38:54 > 0:39:00At that time I'd been spending a lot of time with art dealers in New York
0:39:00 > 0:39:04and...they're not a savoury bunch, particularly.
0:39:04 > 0:39:06And...
0:39:06 > 0:39:10..when I was with the nuns,
0:39:12 > 0:39:14the dignity
0:39:15 > 0:39:18of those people
0:39:19 > 0:39:26and the dignity that resonated in this 1,000-year-old abbey
0:39:28 > 0:39:30touched me.
0:39:30 > 0:39:37It wasn't intellectual, it wasn't, "Oh, this is interesting. I can do this. I can do that."
0:39:37 > 0:39:39I was moved.
0:39:39 > 0:39:41READS IN FRENCH
0:40:05 > 0:40:08TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:
0:41:43 > 0:41:50During the past 20 or so years, most of Clarke's stained glass has been manufactured in collaboration
0:41:50 > 0:41:54with Mayers of Munich, a family firm that goes back for four generations,
0:41:54 > 0:42:01who have supported Clarke in his move from traditional mouth-blown glass to radically new techniques.
0:42:02 > 0:42:08I would cite as one of the proofs of Brian's real eminence in this medium
0:42:08 > 0:42:14that he's constantly trying to redefine what this medium is and what it can do.
0:42:14 > 0:42:21He's stripped it right down and started to make stained glass without any lead.
0:42:22 > 0:42:29This is a project in Saudi Arabia with Norman Foster in the Al Faisaliyah Center in Riyadh.
0:42:29 > 0:42:34And this is, I think, the largest stained glass window in the world.
0:42:34 > 0:42:40I've forgotten how many thousands of square metres. I was working on a new kind of stained glass,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43a kind that excluded lead.
0:42:43 > 0:42:49We were printing in circles a dot matrix of transparent ceramic glazes
0:42:49 > 0:42:52onto the surface of the glass
0:42:52 > 0:42:58that could form in the kind of photographic pixelated way a photographic image.
0:42:58 > 0:43:03We put it onto a three-layer laminate of glazing
0:43:03 > 0:43:10so that the yellow dots were on the front, the blue dots on the middle layer and the black,
0:43:10 > 0:43:15which gave form, on the back. It looked like dots floating in air.
0:43:15 > 0:43:21It gives the impression that you can put your hand into it through the distance of the material.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25What's great about it is the dots are so big
0:43:25 > 0:43:30that when you are at distance from it, you can read it.
0:43:30 > 0:43:36The closer you get to it, the more difficult it becomes. It was almost like a mirage.
0:44:06 > 0:44:14The same technique is developed here in my project Lamina for the Gagosian Gallery in London
0:44:14 > 0:44:20and here for the first time I took the piece in the gallery around the gallery
0:44:20 > 0:44:26and penetrated the wall out onto the pavement and back into the gallery again.
0:44:26 > 0:44:33But the whole time it's kind of a floating, now you see it, now you don't experience.
0:44:34 > 0:44:39This technique had its most dramatic expression
0:44:39 > 0:44:44in the Pyramid of Peace in Kazakhstan.
0:44:44 > 0:44:50The apex of this pyramid is entirely surrounded by a flock of doves
0:44:50 > 0:44:55that look like they've been disturbed and move in a spiral up to the apex,
0:44:55 > 0:45:01but you can see right through them. If the camera lens here was focused on the city beyond,
0:45:01 > 0:45:04you would see Astana.
0:45:04 > 0:45:10The transmission of colour into the central security chamber, which houses 250 delegates below,
0:45:10 > 0:45:16bathes the whole thing in a kind of extraordinary, soft, rather delicate light.
0:45:20 > 0:45:25Clarke's mother, with whom he'd remained very close, died in 2006.
0:45:25 > 0:45:31The experience inspired new directions in his work as well as a number of creative breakthroughs.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN:
0:46:18 > 0:46:23His medium was lead upon lead. Lead lines soldered onto lead,
0:46:23 > 0:46:29with little... sometimes you'd have small passages of stained glass in those,
0:46:29 > 0:46:33just to remind us it's a stained glass window.
0:46:33 > 0:46:40Then he even had panels of lead on lead. So he'd done the absolute light transmission
0:46:40 > 0:46:43to absolute opacity.
0:46:44 > 0:46:50When my mum was in hospital, shortly before...the end,
0:46:50 > 0:46:54I did quite a few photographs of her hands.
0:46:54 > 0:47:00And one of those pictures happens to be her making one of her famous lists.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02She made lists for everything.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05There's one.
0:47:10 > 0:47:17It's a birthday party of mine that she came to. She's wanting to report to her sisters who was there.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20She didn't want to forget Lulu.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22I rather like this one.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24She has...
0:47:24 > 0:47:28When these lists are expressed in lead on lead,
0:47:30 > 0:47:34and they become a permanent solid thing
0:47:34 > 0:47:38rather than a transitory moment in a passing day,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42you have to look at them in a slightly different way.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46And the kind of delicacy of existence,
0:47:46 > 0:47:49the vulnerability of existence,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52becomes much more intense.
0:47:52 > 0:47:57It had a moment of importance when she wrote it,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00and then that moment of importance passed with the next day,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03but now she's gone
0:48:03 > 0:48:06it becomes a window
0:48:06 > 0:48:11through which you can re-access her a little bit.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42He can really draw.
0:48:42 > 0:48:47A lot of thinking goes into drawing. If a line goes that way or that way.
0:48:47 > 0:48:54You can tell the difference between that and a flash drawer who can draw a dog that's like a dog.
0:48:54 > 0:48:59They're almost not thinking. It's just like a camera, really.
0:48:59 > 0:49:03Whereas the person who decides to exclude things from a drawing,
0:49:03 > 0:49:10a person who decides that only two lines are necessary or decides that 53 lines must be necessary,
0:49:10 > 0:49:15there's a lot of consideration that goes into that.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23The making of art is...
0:49:23 > 0:49:25an intimate process.
0:49:25 > 0:49:30And whilst it involves collaboration in many instances,
0:49:30 > 0:49:34it is fundamentally a solitary and...
0:49:34 > 0:49:38and internal experience.
0:49:39 > 0:49:45You can sketch and you can draw and you can work out ideas on paper or on canvas
0:49:45 > 0:49:47or whatever way you do,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52but where the real drawing takes place is
0:49:52 > 0:49:54in the mind.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24Very masculine hands, my mum had.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29You know, work. Work.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33She worked in a cotton mill most of her life.
0:50:33 > 0:50:37She used to say, "My calluses have got calluses."
0:50:39 > 0:50:45I've always liked drawing hands, but I particularly don't want these hands to be slick.
0:50:45 > 0:50:50I don't want them to be clever drawings, you know?
0:51:21 > 0:51:26There's a Brian ring. He did it for my birthday.
0:51:27 > 0:51:34It's like a kind of a... a freehand sketch, made in gold. Like a gold sketch.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37I draw very straight lines
0:51:37 > 0:51:41and they... his are slightly crinkled.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44It's almost like a drawing in space.
0:51:46 > 0:51:52I haven't seen the recent stuff, but it should be done like that, as if drawing not on a canvas
0:51:52 > 0:51:54but in a volume.
0:52:18 > 0:52:23Clarke's lifelong exploration of the line in drawing, painting and stained glass
0:52:23 > 0:52:27has naturally led him into sculpture.
0:52:27 > 0:52:33What I'm trying to achieve here is what I've been doing with the paintings and drawings
0:52:33 > 0:52:37for a very long time and that is to use
0:52:37 > 0:52:44the figurative idea - the tube of paint, the fleur-de-lis or the cross before that.
0:52:44 > 0:52:50It doesn't really matter, but it provides you with some kind of curious road map
0:52:50 > 0:52:56and then you use that as the springboard from which to leap into the air with your line.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08Having made that springboard,
0:53:08 > 0:53:14and I feel we're getting near to a place now where we can allow the line
0:53:14 > 0:53:17to take its own route.
0:53:19 > 0:53:24You can see where that kind of idea might work very effectively.
0:53:24 > 0:53:25Yeah.
0:53:26 > 0:53:32- That's fantastic. - Norman Foster has created this marvellous new plaza -
0:53:33 > 0:53:36especially for me, I have no doubt!
0:53:48 > 0:53:55Now he's more secure. I think when you get older you are more at peace with yourself.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59He's not completely at peace with himself, but more approaching it.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05It's actually also anxiety that makes him seem arrogant,
0:54:05 > 0:54:12I think. Cos I think underneath it is still that quiet, shy person, really.
0:54:19 > 0:54:25I think he has his vulnerabilities and his sensitivities, anxieties.
0:54:25 > 0:54:31There has been many things that he has done which are wonderful and which have not received
0:54:31 > 0:54:37very much recognition at all. And I've seen him, understandably, become despondent about that.
0:54:39 > 0:54:43I think he's a really great artist and he should be recognised,
0:54:44 > 0:54:50but I don't think fame is really a criteria for quality.
0:54:50 > 0:54:55I just hope whatever he does he's happy with it within himself.
0:54:55 > 0:55:01Because I don't think anybody else can convince him that it's great stuff.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05He has to...he has to believe that
0:55:05 > 0:55:09and...and his time will come.
0:55:10 > 0:55:16It's great to see you all here, but I just want to take this special opportunity to say something
0:55:16 > 0:55:22that I've not really said in public before, which is that I really love Liz, my ex-wife...
0:55:22 > 0:55:24CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:55:29 > 0:55:30..and...
0:55:31 > 0:55:38..and if it were not for her, and the possible exception of Zaha, who's here somewhere,
0:55:38 > 0:55:43- I would be conventional, orthodox and a pain in the arse. - LAUGHTER
0:55:43 > 0:55:50And it's using them as standards by which to judge myself that I constantly try to move on.
0:55:50 > 0:55:56But Liz is here tonight and our son, Dan, is here and I'm really proud of both of them.
0:55:56 > 0:55:58- So... - CHEERING
0:56:20 > 0:56:26'I think artists mostly today are businessmen pretending to be inspired.
0:56:26 > 0:56:31'And they work in such tandem with art dealers
0:56:31 > 0:56:33'and museums
0:56:33 > 0:56:35'and collectors
0:56:35 > 0:56:41'that it becomes... an entirely bland
0:56:41 > 0:56:45'and colourless business mechanism,
0:56:45 > 0:56:48'designed to fulfil a market need
0:56:48 > 0:56:53'at the expense of innovation, originality and honesty.'
0:56:56 > 0:57:01And I think that I exist in a kind of parallel world to the art world,
0:57:01 > 0:57:04not necessarily outside, but...
0:57:04 > 0:57:06perhaps parallel.
0:57:08 > 0:57:15'My role is to get as close to being me as I possible can
0:57:15 > 0:57:18'in the picture. And in the work.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23'So long as I remember'
0:57:23 > 0:57:27the power of liberating oneself through imagination
0:57:27 > 0:57:32and through the subjective interpretation of the world,
0:57:33 > 0:57:35I feel I can go anywhere.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011
0:58:15 > 0:58:17Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk