A History of Artists' Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004

by Curtis

• ISBN13: 9781844570959
• ISBN10: 1844570959
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-27
• Publisher: British Film Inst

Summary

In recent years the use of film and video by British artists has come to widespread public attention. Jeremy Deller, Douglas Gordon, Steve McQueen and Gillian Wearing all won the Turner Prize (in 2004, 1996, 1999 and 1997, respectively) for work made on video. This fin-de-sieacute;cle explosion of activity represents the culmination of a long history of work by less well-known artists and experimental filmmakers. Ever since the invention of film in the 1890s, artists have been attracted to the possibilities of working with moving images, whether in pursuit of visual poetry, the exploration of the art form's technical challenges, the hope of political impact, or the desire to reinvigorate such time-honored subjects as portraiture and landscape. Their work represents an alternative history to that of commercial cinema in Britain--a tradition that has been only intermittently written about until now. This major new book is the first comprehensive history of artists' film and video in Britain. Structured in two parts ('Institutions' and 'Artists and Movements'), it considers the work of some 300 artists, including Kenneth Macpherson, Basil Wright, Len Lye, Humphrey Jennings, Margaret Tait, Jeff Keen, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, Malcolm Le Grice, Peter Gidal, William Raban, Chris Welsby, David Hall, Tamara Krikorian, Sally Potter, Guy Sherwin, Lis Rhodes, Derek Jarman, David Larcher, Steve Dwoskin, James Scott, Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey, Peter Greenaway, Patrick Keiller, John Smith, Andrew Stones, Jaki Irvine, Tracy Emin, Dryden Goodwin, and Stephanie Smith and Ed Stewart. Written by the leading authority in the field,A History of Artists' Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004brings to light the range and diversity of British artists' work in these mediums as well as the artist-run organizations that have supported the art form's development. In so doing it greatly enlarges the scope of any understanding of "British cinema" and demonstrates the crucial importance of the moving image to British art history.

Author Biography

David Curtis is Senior Research Fellow at the AHRB British Artists' Film & Video Study Collection, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. From 1977 to 2000 he was responsible for artists' film at the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 2003-4 he curated Tate Britain's largest-ever show of artists' film and video, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain. He was involved in the London Filmmakers' Co-op in the late 1960s and ran the cinema at both the Drury Lane and Robert Street (IRAT) Arts Laboratories. His book Experimental Cinema (1970) was one of the first books to survey the international film avant-garde.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. V
Introduction
Artists	p. 1
Economics	p. 3
Artists
The Film Society	p. 9
Little Magazines	p. 12
Internationalism and Festivals	p. 13
Schooling Artists	p. 23
The London Filmmakers Co-op	p. 25
Into the Gallery	p. 37
Video as Video	p. 40
The 1990s	p. 46
Institutions
Sponsored Films	p. 53
Museums and Collections	p. 58
Post-War Recovery	p. 60
Experimental Film Fund	p. 62
The Arts Council	p. 66
The BFI	p. 74
Funders and Broadcasters	p. 78
Film and Fine Art
The Camera	p. 87
Landscape	p. 94
Portrait	p. 103
Still Life	p. 112
Collage	p. 114
Pop Art	p. 119
Absurd	p. 124
Psychedelic	p. 127
Sculptors' Films	p. 128
Abstraction	p. 131
Figurative Animation	p. 144
Narrative: Fiction, Documentary, Polemic
'Studies in Thought'	p. 153
1920s Amateurs	p. 157
Grierson's Avant-Garde	p. 158
War	p. 165
Post-War Revival	p. 168
Free Cinema	p. 171
Ambitious Narrative	p. 173
Work	p. 183
The Production of Meaning	p. 186
Image and Voice	p. 194
Expanded Cinema and Video Art
Film as Film	p. 205
Conceptual Art and Early Installations	p. 213
Video Art and Television	p. 220
Expanded Cinema	p. 228
Other Structures	p. 234
Gidal's Legacy	p. 236
Later Installations	p. 240
Politics and Identity
Sexual Liberation?	p. 247
Feminism	p. 253
New Romantics	p. 261
Identity	p. 266
The Body	p. 275
Social Space	p. 281
Conclusion	p. 291
Index	p. 295
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