Today I should like to share with you one of my favourite art web sites which holds a huge store of collective, free to view art knowledge
This is www.ubu.com which is a web site dedicated to all aspects of the avante -garde arts . Whether in film ,video, painting ,poetry ,music or performance almost every major figure is given a slice of the action , with new items being constantly added.
This web site has an enormous historical archive which is second to none . This is a film museum par excellence . Once in the web site click onto film and video for a vast index of every major visual practitioner. My own personal favourites are brilliant art documentaries on Francis Bacon and Christian Boltanski from the Southbank programme series .
Andy Warhol channel 4 documentary 1989 -A mirror for the sixties – a documentary with stunning film clips about Andy Warhol and film .
Samuel Beckets only film starring Buster Keaton entitled FILM [1965] also his amazing play NOT I [1973] starring Billy Whitelaw as a disembodied mouth .
Gilbert and George – the ten commandments.1995 [a completely new take on the subject] Jean Genet the french writer’s only film[1950] – Un chant d’amour -about lonely lust in a prison cell . Vitto Acconci’s early video piece – Theme song [1973]- is a stunning claustrophobic and visceral presentation of self .
The dutch performance artist Bas Jan Alder [ 1942 – 75] performance films including the film- I’m too sad to tell you – which is for me one of the most powerful representations of grief in art since Giotto .
The brilliant swiss video artist Pippolotti Rist video presentation – I’m not the girl who misses much is a tour de force video wit.
The british turner prize winning artist Mark Leckey film on british disco dancing – Fiorucci made me hardcore [1999] is visual art/social anthropology of the highest level.
The french painter Yves Klein[ 1928 – 1962] famous for his monochrome and anthropomorphic paintings is filmed using naked women dipped in paint as his paint brushes and literally using fire to paint with is another of my favourites- art and sex making a superb collaboration yet again.
Richard Serra arguably the worlds greatest living sculptor has a selection of his sculpturaly formal videos- of which my favourite is Railroad Turnbridge[1976] .
Early films from the polymath artist Man Ray still seem fresh 80 years on .There is a fine documentary film on USA art star John Baldessari as well as his own conceptual based videos.I myself have only just scrapped the surface of this vast encyclopedia of art.
Who cares that television is so dummed down and lacking in good arts programmimg when you have www.ubu.com as a seemingly endless resource like -The library of babel -short story by Jorge Luis Borges [1899-1986] who has a fine documentary about him on the website.
I look forward to introducing more favourite art educational web sites to nourish the soul in future posts on FADwebsite as well as writing on my Art Basel experiences and introducing and interviewing ARTPOPS both known and unknown
cheers Richard Martin
