Grayson Perry: En Garde
Seriously...22 Elo 2017

Grayson Perry: En Garde

Grayson Perry goes backwards in the archive in search of the moment the avant-garde died.

It's a century since Marcel Duchamp submitted his artwork called Fountain to an exhibition staged by the Society of Independent Artists in New York. Fountain was a urinal -- not a painting of a urinal or a sculpture, just a urinal, bought from a Manhattan hardware store and signed R.Mutt.

The Society of Independent Artists rejected Duchamp's provocation and the original object was lost.

Nowadays Duchamp's urinal is canonised as the fountainhead of conceptual art and the high water (closet) mark of the avant garde. Replicas of the Fountain grace museums around the world - emblems of the avant-garde spirit of experimentation and confrontation.

Somewhere in the intervening years though, something changed - contemporary art lost its ability to shock and critique. We're still hopelessly drawn to the idea of art that's 'cutting edge', 'ground-breaking', 'revolutionary'. But is that possible at this point -- haven't we seen it all before?

Maybe the death knell was sounded when the Saatchi Gallery opened on the South Bank? Or with the advent of protest and radical chic in the 1960s? Maybe it was when the CIA funded the abstract expressionists? Or when the post-war art market began to reign supreme? Or when the Museum of Modern Art opened its doors in 1927?

Or maybe it was all a matter of style the very moment Duchamp's Fountain was conceived?

Featuring Brian Eno, Kenneth Goldsmith, Nnenna Okore, Cornelia Parker, and Sarah Thornton.

Producer: Martin Williams.

Jaksot(484)

Trump at Studio 54

Trump at Studio 54

Frances Stonor-Saunders explores how the young Donald Trump stormed into Manhattan from the outer boroughs in the late 1970s and headed straight for New York's most outrageous nightclub. He didn't dan...

28 Huhti 201738min

A Woman Half in Shadow

A Woman Half in Shadow

Zora Neale Hurston. You might not recognise her name. She was an African American novelist and folklorist, a queen of the Harlem Renaissance and a contemporary of Langston Hughes and Richard Wright.Bu...

18 Huhti 201736min

Rock Transition

Rock Transition

For centuries musicians have defied gender boundaries to create some of the most evocative and provocative art and music.Journalist and culture critic Laura Snapes joins the dots of a fascinating musi...

31 Maalis 201730min

The Mind in the Media

The Mind in the Media

If you ask the author, Nathan Filer, when he first came into contact with mental illness, he'll tell you it was in 1999 when he first became a psychiatric nurse. But, like many of us, he'd actually me...

21 Maalis 201759min

Moving to the Red Planet

Moving to the Red Planet

As we dream of sending humans to Mars, the psychological problems of a mission loom large. As part of Radio 4's Mars season. Claudia Hammond investigates the mind-set behind the desire of those of us ...

14 Maalis 201730min

1917: Eyewitness in Petrograd

1917: Eyewitness in Petrograd

Emily Dicks visits St Petersburg to trace her grandfather's teenage memories of the excitement and fear of the 1917 Revolutions - as preserved on a never-previously-revealed tape.This extraordinary re...

10 Maalis 20171h

Writing a New Caribbean: Under the Surface

Writing a New Caribbean: Under the Surface

A picture of the Caribbean, as seen by a new generation of writers and poets. Elisha Efua Bartels talks to Trinidadian writers Sharon Millar, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, and Andre Bagoo about the sens...

7 Maalis 201730min

Radioactive Art

Radioactive Art

Radioactive waste can remain dangerous to humans for 100,000 years. Nations with nuclear power are building underground storage facilities to permanently house it, but how might they mark these sites ...

3 Maalis 201730min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
i-dont-like-mondays
sita
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
kaksi-aitia
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
uutiscast
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
kolme-kaannekohtaa
aikalisa
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
rss-murhan-anatomia
mamma-mia
rss-nikotellen
meidan-pitais-puhua
rss-haudattu
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
loukussa