Manet: The Man Who Invented Modern Art

Bauhaus 100

August 2019 •English

In 1919 an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100 is the story of Walter Gropius, architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and the teachers and students he gathered to form this influential school. Traumatised by his experiences during the Great War, and determined that technology should never again be used for destruction, Gropius decided to reinvent the way art and design were taught. At the Bauhaus, all the disciplines would come together to create the buildings of the future, and define a new way of living in the modern world.

John Cage: I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It

September 1990 •English

This 56-minute documentary on America's most controversial and unique composer manages to cover a great many aspects of Cage's work and thought. His love for mushrooms, his Zen beliefs and use of the I Ching, and basic bio details are all explained intelligently and dynamically. Black Mountain, Buckminster Fuller, Rauschenberg, Duchamp are mentioned. Yoko Ono, John Rockwell, Laurie Anderson, Richard Kostelanetz make appearances. Fascinating performance sequences include Margaret Leng-Tan performing on prepared piano, Merce Cunningham and company, and performances of Credo In Us, Water Music, and Third Construction. Demystifies the man who made music from silence, from all sounds, from life.

Ray Kappe: California Modern Master - Forty Years of Modular Evolution

January 2009 •English

Explorations in 21st Century American Architecture Series: Ray Kappe has long been a cult figure in the architectural scene in and around Los Angeles. In 1972, he founded the influential, avant garde Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC), where many of the younger-generation architects have studied or taught.

Mies

January 1986 •English

No understanding of the modern movement in architecture is possible without knowledge of its master builder, Mies van der Rohe. Together with documentation of his life, this film shows all his major buildings, as well as rare film footage of Mies explaining his philosophy. Phyllis Lambert relates her choice of Mies as the architect for the Seagram building. Mies's achievements and continuing influence are debated by architects Robert A.M. Stern, Robert Venturi, and Philip Johnson, by former students and by architectural historians. Mies is seen in rare documentary footage.

Joe Lycett: Summer Exhibitionist

July 2022 •English

Art-loving comedian Joe Lycett joins artists hoping to make it onto the walls of the RA Summer Exhibition 2022, the world’s largest open-submission art contest.

Obsessed with Light

November 2023 •English

Loïe Fuller, stage name of Marie Louise Fuller: the American actress and dancer trained in burlesque, circuses and variety shows who, in the 1890s, signed by the Folies Bergère of Paris, became a star. She was portrayed by Toulouse-Lautrec, loved by the symbolists, the inspiration for Art Nouveau, in her shows she combined dance, spirals of fabric and light, reflected from behind or from below through the glass floor that she had created. She transformed into the "Fairy of Light", was taken up (especially in her Serpentine Dance) by Georges Méliès and Alice Guy and influenced René Clair's early films.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

March 2010 •English

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.

Exergo

May 2024 •Basque

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

A Brief History of John Baldessari

March 2012 •English

The epic life of a world-class artist, jammed into six minutes.

Museum Town

March 2019 •English

A rural American town suffering economically from factory closures finds an unconventional route to recovery with the help of MASS MoCA.

A Revolution on Canvas

December 2023 •English

In this hybrid political thriller and verité portrait documentary, Sara Nodjoumi, working with co-director and husband, Till Schauder, makes her directorial debut with this personal film, diving into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of more than 100 “treasonous” paintings by her father, seminal Iranian modern artist Nickzad Nodjoumi.

Looking for Modern Art: Rethinking Art History

November 2018 •German

Many twentieth century European artists, such as Paul Gauguin or Pablo Picasso, were influenced by art brought to Europe from African and Asian colonies. How to frame these Modernist works today when the idea of the primitive in art is problematic?

The Majesty of Art

January 2024 •English

A movie about an artist that had a vision about art and he had expressed that in his paintings, designs, fashion designs and photography and make virtual reality exhibition and virtual reality artworks that people can enjoy and feel it.

Básnik Pavol Ušák Oliva

January 2000 •Slovak

Pablo Picasso et Françoise Gilot : la femme qui dit non

June 2020 •French

Modigliani et ses secrets

December 2020 •French

Sometimes reduced to the image of a cursed artist, Amedeo Modigliani, an admirer of the masters of the Italian Renaissance, has traced an unparalleled path in modern art.

Leftovers

May 2017 •English

A manufactured memory.

Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance

December 2001 •English

A history of the work of Merce Cunningham.

Roundabout Art

May 2020 •German

In Europe, road junctions have become public art galleries. A road trip across France, Switzerland, the Canary Islands, Greece and Germany exploring the glorious world of roundabout art.

Rouge ! L'Art au pays des soviets

March 2019 •French