Life Class: Flickr group
At the time this project came to life, Flickr was the world’s leading website for sharing photography and images. We set up a group on Flickr where participants could upload the work they produced as they watched Life Class: Today’s Nude or attended the preceding drop-in classes.
Visit the group on Flickr here..
Still from Life Class: Today’s Nude, by artist Alan Kane, with tutor Judy Purbeck (2009).
Audio: John Berger on drawing Maria Muñoz
7 minutes 48 seconds
Audio: John Berger on drawing Maria Muñoz
A drawing I started two weeks ago, and every day since I've worked on it, crept up on it to take it unaware, corrected it, erased it - it's a large charcoal drawing on thick paper - hidden it away, displayed it, reworked it, looked at it in a mirror, redrawn it, and today I think it's over. — John Berger
John Berger discusses drawing Maria Muñoz, recorded in July 2009.
This audio is also available to listen to on Soundcloud.
Still from Life Class: Today’s Nude, by artist Alan Kane, with tutor John Berger (2009).
Alan Kane
Alan Kane was selected as part of the 2006 Open call for proposals from Artangel and Jerwood.
Born in Nottingham, Alan Kane lives and works in London. He has had numerous solo exhibitions including The Stratford Hoard at Stratford Station as part of TfL's Art on the Underground series (2008), Steam Powered Internet Machine in collaboration with Jeremy Deller at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2006) and Folk Archive in collaboration with Jeremy Deller at New Art Gallery, Walsall.
He has also exhibited at Aberystwyth Arts Centre; The Lowry, Salford; Kunsthalle Basel; Barbican Centre; Milton Keynes Gallery and Spacex Gallery, Exeter. His group exhibitions include Amateurs, CCA Wattis, San Francisco (2008) and Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires, Ancient & Modern (2006).
Images: Life Class Drop In Session in Covent Garden, Soho, 23 June 2009 (left). Photograph: Chris Osburn; Portrait of the artist Alan Kane, 2009 (above). Photograph: Jessica Mallock
Selected Press
At the end of each programme you see a drawing or a painting that hadn't existed 30 minutes before. You may even, if Kane has his way, feel compelled to put down the remote control and draw the model yourself while you're watching. — Louise France, The Observer, 21 June 2009
"Although known for his conceptual work, such as his collaboration with the Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller, Mr Kane said what inspired him to become an artist was life drawing and he has mourned its diminished popularity. 'It has definitely come off the agenda at art school,' he said. — Mark Hughes, The Independent, 13 April 2009.
Discovering what the viewer's efforts will look like isn't a key motivation for Kane - though there'll be an opportunity to post your drawing up on the website. He's more interested in setting up a situation where the rarified atmosphere of the life room is brought into the living room, and beyond - and in this sense Life Class ties in with Kane's best-known work, Folk Archive, the ongoing project he and Jeremy Deller initiated in 2000 which, gathering together strange objects, rituals and pastimes from around the country, deliberately blurs the boundaries between 'high' and 'low', amateur and professional, popular and conceptual art. — Martin Coomer, Hotline, June 2009.
Life Class is groundbreaking television – not just because of the nudity (interestingly there are no UK laws against nudity on TV at any time of day, as long as it isn’t in a sexual context), but also because of the interactive nature of the programme. The brainchild of contemporary artist Alan Kane, in collaboration with the arts commissioning organisations Artangel and Jerwood, the series is intended to democratise culture and create, as Kane puts it, an 'interesting new space' for TV. — Rebecca Rose, Financial Times, 20 June 2009.
I’m sitting in front of a large and naked woman named Lucy who is lying in a foetal position on the floor of a Victorian art gallery in north London. I have spent the past 40 minutes trying to capture both the exact curve of Lucy’s fleshy backside, in charcoal on the paper I’ve got propped on my knees, and, with a putty eraser, the way that the light is falling on her upper buttock. So engrossed have I become in this effort that I have long forgotten the reason I am here: to observe the atmosphere of a life class, and to get a sense of the curious relationship of model to amateur artist. Who wants to take notes, though, when you can draw? — Tim Adams, The New Statesman, 25 June 2009.
Credits
Life Class: Today’s Nude was commissioned and produced for Channel 4 by Artangel. The programmes were commissioned by Jan Younghusband, Commissioning Editor for Arts and Performance, Channel 4. The commission was supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Artists’ materials for the ‘pop-up’ life drawing classes supplied by London Graphic Centre.
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, Guardian Angels and The Company of Angels.
