In this keynote presentation Ian Christie - film historian, curator, and Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College, University of London - explores the influence of cinema on the work of visual artists such as Brancussi, Kandinsky and Picasso through the structuralist film work of Peter Kubelka to contemporaries such as Peter Greenaway, Douglas Gordon and Steve McQueen.

This event was part of the British Art Show 6, a major culture event that took place at visual arts venues across Bristol in 2006. Occurring every five years, the show is the most ambitious survey of new and recent developments in art from the UK. An increasing large selection of moving image work featured in the exhibition, and Watershed's contribution was to explore the evolving and sometimes fraught relationship such work has with its exhibition context.

The space in which audiences view work impacts on their experience of the art object, and over time audiences have seen an ebb and flow of the moving image between the dark cinema auditorium, the white cube gallery and more recently online.

Through screenings, discussion and presentation, Watershed invited audiences to explore the impact and influence of context on art, curatorial decision-making, critical analysis, posing the question ‘Is the gallery the new cinema, or is cinema the new art?'.

The talk took place alongside screenings of artists' work including Breda Beban, Alia Syed, and Zineb Sidera, and a panel discussion exploring some of the critical, curatorial, and creative issues that exist currently in the moving image.

Related Links:
British Art Show
British Art Show 6

Posted on Tue 18 July 2006.

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