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London
A centuries-old city transformed by skyscrapers, innovations, and a diverse citizenry, London has long been home to groundbreaking artists, from Romantic-era trailblazers like J.M.W. Turner to pioneering modernists like Francis Bacon. Buoyed by this history of artistic excellence, the artists featured in this film draw inspiration from decades of British art while contending with the repercussions of colonialism and xenophobia, brought to light at a time of massive political upheaval in the country. This esteemed group takes on fundamental artistic principles of form and content to create sculpture, installation, video, and performance works that rethink history and subvert tradition, all while drawing upon the architectural and technological innovations of the twenty-first century. As collisions of old and new, their works are as layered, diverse, and dynamic as the city in which they live.
More information and creditsCredits
Executive Producer: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Nick Ravich. Director & Producer: Ian Forster. Editor: Morgan Riles. Director of Photography: Andrew Kemp.
Assistant Curator: Danielle Brock. Design & Animation: Momentist, Inc. Composer: Joel Pickard. Additional Art21 Staff: Lauren Barnett, Lolita Fierro, Joe Fusaro, Meghan Garven, Jonathan Munar, and Emma Nordin. Narration: Okema T. Moore.
Additional Photography: Jarred Alterman, Joshua Bagnall, Bryan Chang, Matt Conway, Pau García Laita, Christoph Lerch, Jonnie Lewis, John Marton, and Rafael Salazar Moreno. Assistant Camera: Santi Arcos, Alex Rozerot Kirkwood, Oliver Richardt, Charlie Stoddart, Matt Ward, Yifan Wen, and Ava Wiland. Location Sound: Simon Forrester, Tim Hodge, Sean Millar, Annie Needham, and James Page. Beijing Field Producer: Vicky Du. Production Assistants : Jonathan Batty, Adam Roberts, and Rialda Zukic.
Digital Intermediate: Cut + Measure. Post-Production Producer: Alex Laviola. Colorist: Chris Ramey. Post-Production Sound Services: Konsonant Post. Re-Recording Mixer & Sound Editor: Gisela Fullà-Silvestre. Online & Conform: David Gauff. Additional Animation: Andy Cahill. Assistant Editors: Jasmine Cannon, Jonah Greenstein, and Mengchen Zhang. Descriptive Video Information: Captionmax. Public Relations: Cultural Counsel.
Station Relations: De Shields Associates, Inc. Legal Counsel: Barbara T. Hoffman, Esq.
Artwork Courtesy: John Akomfrah, Phyllida Barlow, © Anish Kapoor. DACS, London / ARS, NY 2020, Christian Marclay, Black Audio Film Collective, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson Gallery, Paula Cooper Gallery, Smoking Dogs Films, and White Cube. Additional Music: “Craft” & “Pandora’s Box” by Christian Marclay; Atavistic Records.
Interns: Shane Daly, Grace Doyle, Eda Li, Daniela Mayer, Jason Mendoza, Nikhil Oza, Anika Rahman, Ana Sanz, Sara Schwartz, Victoria Xu, and Sadie Yanckello.
Archival Materials: BlackBoxGuild; Teri Bloom; British Council; Jacob Burckhardt; © Paula Court; CriticalPast; Paul Crosby; Adrian Gaut; Alexander Gold; Andy Haslam; Intermezzo FIlms / Luc Peter; Pierce Jackson; Lucerne Festival; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Pond5; SandenWolff, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY; Jared Schiller; Snapchat; © Tate; © The Eva Hesse Estate; The Kitchen Archive, ca. 1971–1999; The Getty Research Institute; Whitechapel Gallery Archive; White Cube; © Whitney Museum of American Art, 2010.
Special Thanks: The Art21 Board of Trustees; Lucy Adams; Ashitey Akomfrah; Anthony Allen; Barlow studio assistants; Alison Burstein; CAFA Art Museum; Anna Cerdà i Callís; Clare Chapman; Coriander Studio; Cultureshock Media; Des Moines Art Center; Susan Doyon; Raena Franklin; Gibbs Farm; Emma Gifford-Mead; Elissa Goldstone; Nora Gomez-Strauss; Lina Gopaul; Melissa Saenz Gordon; Tim Griffin; Louise Hayward; Mackie Healy; Shelley Hirsch; Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; ICA Boston; Jupiter Artland; Kapoor studio assistants; Esther Knuth; Betsy Lack; David Lawson; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Jon Lowe; Millennium Park, City of Chicago; Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture, Republic of Ghana; Tessa Morefield; David Moss; Capucine Perrot; Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery; Elizabeth Robert; Royal Academy of Arts; Dread Scott; Somerset House; Tate Britain; Venetia Tate; Times Square Arts; Sophie Treharne Nurse; Venice Biennale; Lucy Wilkinson; Nora Woodin; and Allison Wruble.
Major underwriting for Season 10 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, Lambent Foundation, The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Toby Devan Lewis, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Henri Lambert, Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman, and Sakana Foundation.
Series Creators: Susan Dowling and Susan Sollins.
©2020 Art21, Inc.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide.
Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.
Anish Kapoor was born in 1954 in Mumbai, India. World renowned for his perception-defying sculptures and large-scale public installations, Kapoor works with industrial materials like mirror, steel, stone, and vinyl to create forms that evoke the metaphysical and challenge viewers’ ideas about physical space. Kapoor’s sublime use of concave forms, reflective surfaces, intense colors, and monumental scale invites viewers to experience both collective awe and private contemplation.
John Akomfrah was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1957. A pioneering filmmaker, Akomfrah creates multichannel video installations that critically examine the legacy of colonialism, the Black diaspora, and environmental degradation. Akomfrah weaves together original footage with archival material to create stirring, layered narratives that juxtapose personal and historical memory, past and present, and environmental and human crises.
Phyllida Barlow was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in 1944. Inspired by the urban environment, Barlow’s sculptures marry unconventional materials such as cardboard, plywood, plaster, and cement with vibrantly colored paint and fabrics. Her invented forms are created through layered processes of accumulation, removal, and juxtaposition—gestures that Barlow describes as “more functional than artistic.” The resulting massive works challenge viewers’ experiences of physical space, stretching the limits of mass, volume, and height as they tower, block, and interrupt space. Yet these works remain distinctly anti-monumental; the artist leaves exposed, unfinished seams, revealing the means of the works’ making and playing with the tensions between hardness and softness, the imperious and the comic, and the painterly and the sculptural.
Christian Marclay was born in 1955 in San Rafael, California, and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. For more than thirty years, Marclay has explored the relationship between the visual and the audible through a variety of media, including sculpture, video, performance, collage, and music.
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Season 10 Educators' Guide
Educators’ Guides provide information about selected artists and themes, questions for classroom discussions, and hands-on activities that provide students with a fundamental understanding of creative and critical thinking processes.