Cedar Lewisohn, Tate Producer and champion of GBAD on The Hollowman, an art film with a difference . . .

Hello Great British Art Debate blog readers! So, I’ve been very busy doing lots of mad projects for GBAD, all trying to stir up debate about art, museum collections and their purpose.

Last week I helped put on an outdoor screening of a new animation made by artist filmmakers Sohrab Golsorki and Dean Kissick. Dean and Sohrab made a film using tens of thousands of pictures downloaded from Tate’s website. They described it as “a moving image museum of British art”. The film was a crazy mixture of new rave techno graphics and masterpieces from art history. It was art made from other people’s art. I loved it.

We projected the film onto the façade of Peckham Plex Cinema accompanied by music programmed by artists Matthew Stone and Oliver Hogan. Actually, the whole event had come about through conversations with Matthew which started at an earlier workshop event we put on at Tate Britain called Interconnected Echoes.

For me it was great to show the film in Peckham. There are loads of trendy arty types around there but also lots of people from really diverse backgrounds, who I guess wouldn’t ever dream of going to an art gallery. If the people don’t come to art, take the art to the people, is my philosophy. I’m a big believer that museums are for everyone, as are their collections. If it’s publicly funded, then it belongs to all of us, so we should all have a chance to see the works in these collections.

The Hollowman also had conceptual links to Peckham. Part of its inspiration came from the hallucinations that haunted the visionary artist and poet William Blake. In 1767, at the age of 10, Blake saw angels in Peckham Rye. As he put it: “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” Whatever he was on, I’ll take two.

After the screening there was a launch party for a new art TV project being made by the Lucky PDF art collective. The party was in a warehouse just up the road from the cinema where we had shown the film earlier. We projected Sohrab and Dean’s film again at the party, to about 500 slightly bemused revellers. The images where so out of place at the party, they somehow fit in perfectly. All in all, it made for a very unusual night out in Peckham. I’m sure William Blake would have approved.

OK. More soon.

Cedar

John Martin, inventor of the apocalyptic sublime and all-round eccentric and interesting guy, has a GBAD show coming up at Tate Britain next year. In preparation, Tate’s conservation team are restoring a painting long thought to be lost to massive flood damage . . . Sarah Maisey is leading this project and will be reoprting on her progress as the show gets nearer!

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