BBC goes pop for celebration of art movement in August

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/15/bbc-pop-art-celebration-august-radio-tv-iplayer

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The BBC is to explore the enduring legacy of pop art in August, in a week-long celebration that runs across BBC4, Radios 3, 4 and 6 Music and the iPlayer.

Soup Cans & Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World, features Alastair Sooke tracing the lines between artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. The centrepiece documentary will also look at pop art’s relationship with celebrity, advertising and mass media, and how it is being received in China today.

“In our age of selfies and social networking, we are all living in a world defined by Pop,” said Sooke. “For me, it was a privilege to meet so many of the men and women who pioneered this hugely significant global art movement – as well as some of the younger artists who are keeping Pop’s raucous spirit alive.”

In A Day in the Life of Andy Warhol, Stephen Smith explores Warhol’s career with Factory star Brigid Polk, assistant Gerard Malanga and collaborator John Giorno. Also on the channel, art historian Richard Clay will argue that graffiti – “of the people, by the people, for the people” – is the original pop art.

BBC4 has convinced British pop artists Peter Blake and Derek Boshier to answer What Do Artists Do All Day? and then, alongside Peter Phillips, create three new channel idents for BBC4 – a nod to Pop Goes the Easel, Ken Russell’s 1962 definitive documentary, which will be available to watch on the iPlayer.

“Pop art remains one of the striking and dynamic cultural movements of the 20th century,” said BBC4’s channel editor Cassian Harrison. “It is the moment when high art and mass-production collided for the first time; reshaping our visual landscape and launching a whole new generation of art ‘stars’.”

The season will feature work for radio audiences, including a Radio 4 play set during Warhol’s Studio 54 days and featuring characters such as Truman Capote and Keith Haring.

Radio 3 will broadcast Andy Warhol’s Factory Friends, an archive programme presented by Paul Morley, while 6 Music has an Ian Dury documentary by former art college teacher Blake, and an examination by Lauren Laverne of Nico, Debbie Harry and other women in pop art.

“The pop art movement was so groundbreaking and influential, it went beyond art into the music, design and film of the time,” Laverne said.Viewers will be able to watch archive material on the iPlayer, including Roy Lichtenstein: Pop Idol (2004), Monitor 139: Joe Tilson and Peter Brook (1964), Release Pop Goes To The Hayward (1969) and The Visual Scene: Playing It Cool (1969).