Pull up a seat, throw off your slingbacks and watch artist Leigh Bowery through the eyes of those who knew him best — his friends, family, and fellow club kids. We’ve brought together Nicola Bowery Rainbird, Les Child, Princess Julia, Jeffrey Hinton and Rachel Auburn (plus a few special guests…) to revisit some of Bowery’s most outrageous moments and reflect on his short but extraordinary life. Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl To license Tate films please email film.licensing@tate.org.uk
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28.2.25
20.2.25
Brutalism
Brutalism: Oscar-nominated film has revived interest in a controversial architectural legacy
With ten Oscar nominations, The Brutalist has reignited the debate over the legacy of brutalism. The polarising architectural style was shaped by post-war hopes for a better future. But it was also, as historian Adrian Forty argues in his book Concrete and Culture (2012), an “expression of melancholy, the work of a civilisation that had all but destroyed itself in the second world war”.
The fictional architect at centre of The Brutalist, László Tóth, is an Austro-Hungarian modernist and concentration-camp survivor who moves to America to rebuild his life. His designs, described as “machines”, are inspired by the trauma of camps like Buchenwald and Dachau.
Emerging from the rubble of the second world war, brutalism became an architectural response to devastation and the pressing need for urban renewal. The destruction caused by the Blitz provided architects with opportunities to design environments reflecting the ideals of the new welfare state: equality, accessibility and functionality for the collective good.
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This ethical foundation aimed to address the social needs of the post-war era, particularly in housing, education and public welfare infrastructure. Notable examples of the style include the Barbican estate and Southbank Centre in London.
Architectural critic Reyner Banham, who coined the term brutalism in his 1966 work Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic, argued that the movement was more than an aesthetic choice. He championed the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, young British architects who played a crucial role in shaping brutalism through projects like Robin Hood Gardens in London’s Tower Hamlets. For Banham, brutalism was an ethical stance and a form of “radical philosophy” aiming to address the social needs of the post-war era.
The brutalist style has, however, often been criticsed for what many perceived to be its unappealing, “ugly” aesthetic and alienating qualities. In 1988, King Charles famously compared the National Theatre in London to a nuclear plant, encapsulating the public’s mixed reactions. Similarly the situationists (a French anti-capitalist art movement) denounced brutalist housing estates as “machines for living”. They saw them as oppressive structures that stifled human connection.
The perception of brutalism is highly dependent on context. In warmer climates like Marseille in France, the play of sunlight on raw concrete gave structures a sculptural quality. In the UK’s wet climate, however, exposed concrete weathered quickly, making buildings appear grey and neglected.
Yet for brutalist architects, this was never just about aesthetics. They saw their designs as expressions of honesty and social progress, rejecting ornamentation in favour of raw, functional materials that symbolised a new egalitarian society. The very qualities that critics saw as oppressive were, to its proponents, what made brutalism a radical and hopeful architecture.
Rebellion and reclamation
Despite their ethical intentions, brutalist buildings often appeared to have an alienating impact on their residents. In his book Making Dystopia (2018), architectural historian James Stevens Curl discusses the Canada Estate in Bermondsey, London, built in 1964, where tenants expressed their disaffection for the environment through acts of vandalism.
By the 1970s, the optimism surrounding modernist and brutalist projects had begun to collapse, both figuratively and literally. One of the most infamous moments symbolising this failure was the Ronan Point disaster in 1968.
A gas explosion on the 18th floor of this newly built tower block in east London caused a partial collapse. Four people were killed and serious concerns were raised about the safety and quality of post-war high-rise housing.
This tragedy pushed the Clash’s Joe Strummer to write one of the band’s most notable songs, London’s Burning, in 1976. In the late 1970s and 1980s, punks splattered brutalist architecture with graffiti slogans echoing situationist critiques of modern urban life.
Some referenced punk band names or song lyrics, showing how punk didn’t just adopt the attitude of the situationists but also their language and tactics. Jamie Reid, the architect of the Sex Pistols’ aesthetic, often used images of brutalist structures as a stark backdrop to his punk visuals.
The punk movement reinterpreted the failure of brutalism not just as an architectural problem but as a broader societal collapse, highlighting issues of alienation, neglect and the erosion of post-war utopian ideals.
Yet, in recent years, the brutalist aesthetic has found a new audience. Online communities, such as Reddit’s 1.5 million-member r/EvilBuildings reflect on buildings and surroundings captured by community members and the impressions these structures leave. Brutalist buildings frequently top the list.
This renewed interest highlights the complex legacy of a style that was once widely criticised but continues to captivate a broader audience beyond architects.
Brutalism’s dual legacy, a movement intended to create community but often seen as alienating, continues to shape debates in architecture and urban planning. The controversial nature of this style is evident in the demolition of prominent structures like the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens (2018), the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth (2004), and the currently ongoing demolition of Cumbernauld town centre in central Scotland.
These demolitions highlight both brutalism’s polarised reception and the public reassessment of its value. These spaces are more than just concrete. They are sites of memory, rebellion, and ongoing cultural significance, continuously shaping and being shaped by the society around them.
Gleb Redko, PhD Researcher in Punk, Brutalism & Psychogeography, School of Architecture Art & Design, University of Portsmouth
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
19.2.25
Scottish colourists exhibition
Scottish colourists exhibition: the painters who stood shoulder to shoulder with Matisse and Cezanne
The exhibition curator James Knox is to be congratulated on bringing together an impressive collection of work that tells the story of a diverse group of artists who helped transform and modernise British art in the early 20th century and contains work held in private collections not seen by the public before.
The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives at the Dovecot in Edinburgh centres on the creativity of four Scottish artists: Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell and George Leslie Hunter, who are known to be among Scotland’s most innovative and radical painters.
The Scottish colourists, as they were known, all visited and lived in Paris and were heavily influenced by the burgeoning avant-garde movement there in the early years of the 20th century. This was during its most dynamic and transformative stages, when cubism, post-impressionism and fauvism movements were evolving.
The exhibition highlights and contrasts the work produced by the colourists to that of Roger Fry’s Bloomsbury group members, Vanessa Bell and her amour Duncan Grant. It also includes work by the Fitzroy Street Group and several distinguished Welsh artists of that time, Augustus John and James Dickson Innes, as well as fauvist artists Andre Derain and Kees van Dongen.
The colourists’ paintings stand out in the exhibition through the maturity and confidence of their artworks, the tonal qualities and vibrancy of their colour palettes consistently rising above the more muted works surrounding them.
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The capacity of the colourists to study, travel and seek inspiration internationally, away from a grey Scottish Presbyterian climate, and particularly, embedding themselves in the Paris art scene in the early 20th century is impressive.
These artists stood shoulder to shoulder with their European contemporaries, inspired by the post-impressionist work of Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh and Derain. They delivered consistent and highly sophisticated artworks throughout their careers exploring light, shape and dynamic colour ranges, and often painted outdoors.
Each of the Scottish colourists returned to Scotland bringing new approaches to art with them. Peploe experimented with Cezanne-like geometric forms, whereas Fergusson’s practice was heavily influenced by the fauves. Hunter experimented with simplified post-impressionist blocks of colour to create dynamic shapes, while Cadell often focused on bold shapes and stylish impressionistic compositions.
Peploe, Hunter and Cadell exhibited in London’s Leicester Gallery in 1923 where they were first described as the “three colourists” by critic P.G. Konody.
Peploe, Fergusson and Hunter’s reputations were enhanced in 1924 when their work was bought by the French state after an exhibition organised by one of the most influential art dealers in Europe, Glaswegian Alexander Reid. He represented the four artists at the Galerie Barbazanges in Paris entitled Les Peintres de L’Ecosse Moderne, and turned their loose affiliation into an art movement.
Reid had also been responsible for developing the profile of The Glasgow Boys – a group of radical young painters whose disillusionment with academic painting signalled the birth of modernism in Scotland in the late 19th century. Reid was also a central figure in developing Sir William Burrell’s art collection. This was closely followed by a further exhibition in London’s Leicester Gallery in 1925 and then in Paris in 1931.
Peploe was the most commercially successful of the four artists, having a still life purchased by the Tate in 1927. His painting of Paris Plage captures the atmospherically startling white light of that French region. His studio work with a still life of flowers and fruit had the hallmarks of Cezanne’s style.
His love of outdoor landscapes, as shown in Kirkcudbright, painted in south-west Scotland, also resemble Cezanne’s primary geometric forms. He visited the island of Iona on a number of occasions with Cadell and other painters, revealing his love of the white sands, rocks and water which can be seen in Green Sea, Iona.
Cadell was known for his powerful still lifes, stylish portraits of elegant women in hats, and for his landscape painting on Iona. Cadell’s Green Sea on Iona and Ben More on Mull on show are part of a series of paintings of the white sands he produced on his regular visits there.
J.D. Fergusson‘s The Blue Hat, Closerie de Lilas is an outstanding piece on show which dazzles with the vibrancy of Parisian cafe life. He was attracted to fauve-like expressive colours and strong outlines in his work. The one piece of sculpture on display is by Fergusson, whose foray into sculptural medium in the Eastre, Hymn to the Sun is striking in its modernist aesthetic – like the female robot character in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Having no art training like the others, Lesley Hunter’s Still Life with White Jug and Peonies in a Chinese vase highlight his developing skills as a still life painter and they have a striking vibrancy to them. His outdoor scenes use loosely styled daubs of colour in a post-impressionistic style often in vibrant colours.
All the Scottish colourists were recognised for their influence and contribution to the development of Scottish art during their lifetimes, combining aspects of The Glasgow School and cutting-edge Parisian avant garde. But they fell out of fashion due to economic decline before the second world war.
They were rediscovered and packaged as a collective in the 1950s initially by art historian T.J. Honeyman in his book Three Scottish Colourists and were brought together with the inclusion of J.D. Fergusson in the 1980s. Although their key role in the development of Scottish art history is assured, interestingly their appreciation in France is even greater than in Britain.
The Scottish Colourists: Radical Perspectives is on at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh until June 28.
Blane Savage, Lecturer in MA Creative Media Practice and BA(Hons) Graphic Art & Moving Image, University of the West of Scotland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
29.1.25
Water Walks: Julie Gough mudlarking on the Thames | Tate
Tasmanian Aboriginal artist Julie Gough takes a walk along a pebble beach alongside the Thames, where uncovered whale bones and a hidden staircase reveal a story of transportation and repatriation. Gough was one of the artists who appeared as part of the three-day symposium Waterways: Arteries, rhythms and kinship at Tate Modern in September 2024. Research supported by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl
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16.1.25
Water Walks: Adham Faramawy on the Thames | Tate
In the second episode of our series Water Walks, Adham Faramawy explores the Thames around East India Dock, uncovering connections between the river and the Nile. Faramawy was one of the artists who appeared as part of the three-day symposium Waterways: Arteries, rhythms and kinship at Tate Modern in September 2024. Research supported by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl
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12.1.25
24 from 2024 by Paul Garrard
Paul Garrard's video, "24 from 2024," presents a selection of 24 artworks from his 2024 portfolio. This digital exhibition offers viewers an immersive journey through his creative endeavors over the past year.
The video showcases a diverse range of Garrard's artistic styles and subjects, reflecting his versatility and commitment to digital art. Each piece is thoughtfully presented, allowing viewers to appreciate the intricate details and underlying themes. The musical soundtrack of the video was specifically created by Garrard to compliment the visuals.
Garrard's approach to digital art emphasises accessibility and innovation. By sharing his work through this video format, he reaches a broader audience, aligning with his belief that "everyone is a special kind of artist."
For those interested in exploring more of Paul Garrard's work, his website offers an extensive gallery of his creations.
You can watch the video here:
G.P. Thomson
8.1.25
'It's not enough just protesting' – Arahmaiani | Tate
For artist and activist Arahmaiani, art can be a form of reparation and healing. Her performances and community-based work offer a way of addressing historical violence by coming to terms with the past. In this short video, watch Arahmaiani recreate her 1998 work Burning Country in the galleries at Tate Modern. The work refers to traumatic events witnessed by the artist in her home country of Indonesia in May 1998. During a period of economic crises, food shortages and unemployment, students began demonstrating against the authoritarian regime of President Suharto. The killing of four students at a protest triggered three days of arson attacks and acts of racially motivated violence, mostly directed against the Chinese Indonesian population. Around 1,500 people were raped or murdered. Arahmaiani made black-and-white paintings to mourn the women whom this horror was inflicted upon. For Arahmaiani, this work is a memorial ‘for the souls of the women who were violated and killed’ during the riots. Research supported by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor
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26.12.24
Glam tidings of joy: how Slade made Merry Xmas Everybody a seasonal hit for the ages
Are you hanging up your stocking on your wall?It’s the time that every Santa has a ball!
You’ve probably just heard the 1973 Slade classic at the mall or supermarket. Merry Xmas Everybody is one of the most enduring Christmas singles of all time: three-and-a-half minutes of festive rock n’ roll, it’s infectiously joyful, raucous – and, most of all, Christmassy.
Written by band members Noddy Holder and Jim Lea, Merry Xmas Everybody celebrates the exuberance of a working-class Christmas Day: waiting for family to arrive, wishing for snow, whizzing down the hill in a homemade buggy and falling off, drinking and dancing.
Even granny is “up and rock ‘n’ rolling with the rest”. Santa not only rides a red-nosed reindeer, he does “ton-ups on his sleigh”.
With its Beatles-esque refrain and harmonies, the ring of a harmonium organ and singalong chorus, Merry Xmas Everybody is far from your traditional White Christmas or Jingle Bells. It’s Slade’s Christmas, and we’re all invited:
So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having funLook to the future now, it’s only just begun.
And back in the British winter of 1973, people really did need some fun, and reason to look to the future with hope. Wage freezes, rising inflation, strikes and general discontent had made for anything but a merry Christmas.
The glam and the grim
Slade were one of the top British glam rock bands of the 1970s. With a stomping rock n’ roll sound and the high-energy, raspy vocals of Noddy Holder, they embodied no-frills party rock, tinged with a good dose of humour.
With six number one singles and 24 top tens – including glam standards like Look Wot U Dun, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Take Me Back ‘Ome and Cum on Feel the Noize – Slade’s appeal lay in their marriage of glitter-rock sparkle and rowdy, working-class attitude.
And there was good reason for Slade’s – and glam rock’s – popularity when Merry Xmas Everybody hit big: escapism.
1973 was a tough year in Britain. Conservative prime minister Edward Heath had used the Industrial Relations Act to try to curb the trade unions’ power, triggering widespread strike action, including 1.6 million workers taking part in a one-day strike on May 1.
By November, winter was approaching. Electricity supplies relied on coal, which was now limited. A state of emergency was declared. In the cold of winter, people were instructed to switch off their heaters. Television broadcasts ended by 10.30pm.
The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree reportedly remained unlit that year, except for Christmas Day.
Just two weeks before Christmas, a three-day working week was announced, to come into effect at midnight on December 31. This would force businesses to close to conserve electricity, meaning many workers either went part-time or simply lost their jobs.
Noddy Holder has described writing Merry Xmas Everybody to give people something to enjoy in those tough times. It might not be quite the same, but after 2024’s cost-of-living pressures and plenty of political instability, the song still feels relevant today.
A half-century hit
Noddy Holder knew what he was doing. The product of a Wolverhampton council estate, he was proud of his working-class background but never took himself too seriously. He wore tartan stage costumes and an exaggerated top hat decorated with silver discs that caught the TV lights.
Guitarist Dave Hill – the most flamboyant band member – styled himself as “Super Yob”, a working-class superhero decked out in more glitter than a department store Christmas tree. They were brash, brightly costumed, and they were here to party.
Glam rock dominated the music charts in 1973, including The Sweet’s Block Buster! and Ballroom Blitz, Suzi Quatro’s Can the Can and 48 Crash, and T. Rex’s 20th Century Boy. David Bowie released Life on Mars? and The Jean Genie. And Wizzard’s See My Baby Jive went to number one – as did Slade’s Cum on Feel the Noize.
By December, Slade’s closest competition was Wizzard’s Christmas single, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, a merry, 1960s-style romp punctuated with the ironic ring of cash registers. Vocalist Roy Wood appeared on TV dressed as a bizarre glam rock Santa.
In the end, Slade won out, taking the vaunted Christmas number one slot and staying there for nine weeks. The music was a reworked psychedelic tune Holder had begun writing in 1967, with bassist Jim Lea adding the verses. The band borrowed the harmonium from John Lennon who was recording in the studio next door.
At the end of the song, Noddy screams, “It’s Chrissstmasss!”. It was an expression of joy in the face of everyday troubles, but also of solidarity and resilience. The band’s television performances of the song were euphoric.
Now, 51 years later, the song has spent over 120 weeks in the charts, often returning for several Christmases in a row. Noddy Holder, now 78, often jokes about the royalties providing his pension.
And Merry Xmas Everybody is back in the charts again this year. That’s testament to the song’s own resilience, and its timeless appeal to having a good time, even when times are tough.
Alison Blair, Teaching Fellow in Music, University of Otago
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
2.12.24
Water Walks: Taey Iohe in Walthamstow Wetlands | Tate
Artist and writer Taey Iohe guides us through a meditative act of self-disovery in the tranquil setting of London's Walthamstow Wetlands. Iohe was one of the artists who appeared as part of the three-day symposium Waterways: Arteries, rhythms and kinship at Tate Modern in September 2024. Research supported by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl
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Animal Farm at 80: George Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution
Glenn Burgess , University of Hull During the early years of the second world war, George Orwell believed that England’s revolutionary mom...
