Museums in Quarantine

Museums in Quarantine S01 complete (1280x720p HD, 50fps, soft Eng subs)

[Note: all these episodes have already been released. This torrent simply brings them together.]

E01 Warhol
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Alastair Sooke gains privileged access to the Tate Modern for a last look at the Warhol exhibition. Sooke argues that Warhol might just be the most significant artist of the second half of the 20th century. Warhol not only predicted, but in many ways helped to create, the world we live in - one obsessed with hyper-consumption, mass media and celebrity. / / Covering works from across Warhol's career, Sooke explores Warhol's long-running commitment to experimental film and TV, as well as his fascination with advertising, pop music and commerce. And he delves into the man behind the carefully curated eccentricity, examining the expressions of Warhol's queer identity in his later works and how his background as the son of eastern European immigrants influenced his art. / / In conversation with Gregor Muir, one of the exhibition's curators, Sooke discovers that one of his aims with the show was to strip away some of the myths about Warhol's work and broaden the focus away from Warhol's pop art studies of the 1960s. Finally, he muses on the particularly Warholian irony that this blockbuster show was closed, due to the coronavirus lockdown, almost as soon as it had

E02 Rembrandt
Historian Simon Schama takes us on a very personal virtual tour of the Young Rembrandt exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, currently in lockdown. The exhibition charts the first ten years of the Dutch master's career, when the miller's son from Leiden became the superstar of 17th-century Amsterdam and was on course to become one of the greatest artists of all time. / / For Schama, who was able to see the exhibition before it closed, the coronavirus crisis has given Rembrandt's work even more impact and resonance. As he says, 'No artist I think better understood the fragile nature of human happiness; the shocking suddenness with which we can go from riches to rags, wellbeing to sickness, contentment to grief.' / / Schama tells the story of the artist's rise to fame and riches, celebrating the audacity and astonishing technical mastery of many of the works on show. But he also shows us a deeply wise and philosophical artist, who was always aware of the fickleness of fortune, and who was as interested - if not more - in portraying beggars as he was prosperous burghers and kings.

E03 Tate Britain
In times of crisis, people often think that art and culture are luxuries. However, in this episode of Museums in Quarantine, Dr James Fox argues, in difficult times such as these, that we need art more than ever. Taking the viewer on a personal tour of some of the most profound artworks from the Tate Britain's collection, from a self-portrait by 18th-century artist William Hogarth through to the gallery's 21st-century installations, Dr Fox shows how art has a unique ability both to depict humanity's suffering and offer us consolation. / / Guiding us through the silent galleries of the temporarily closed Tate Britain, Dr Fox argues that great artists' renderings of war and disaster remind us that we are not alone. Countless others have also lived through, and triumphed over, adversity. / / The paintings, by some of Britain's foremost landscape artists, present a bucolic vision of Britain - one that is deeply reassuring. And art, of course, also allows us a means of creating other worlds in our imagination and an escape from the confines of our own home. / / Ultimately, this uplifting film asserts that art has the power to bring us hope and offer us a glimmer of light in the darkness.

E04 British Museum
Art historian Dr Janina Ramirez has lovingly paced the galleries of the British Museum since she was a child. Now, as the museum's incomparable collections lie shuttered during the lockdown, she has been given permission to curate a highly personal selection of some of her favourites amongst its many treasures and to guide us on her very own virtual tour of its silent, empty galleries. / / For Ramirez, no other collection in the world makes it possible to chart the highs and lows of humans across the world, and across time, in quite the same way. Her tour takes her across many different cultures and periods of history, alighting on objects as varied as a decorated Aztec skull, ancient Egyptian cat mummies and an 18th-century tea set. As she says, 'Whether they provide a glimpse into enduring notions of love, sex and spirituality or catalogue moments of change, power and achievement, the artefacts in this one building show us the eternal and the ephemeral.' / / The film is a personal reflection on the solace, wisdom and sense of perspective that the British Museum's global collections can bring us in a time of crisis. 'We all matter,' Ramirez concludes, 'we all stitch ourselves, even in the smallest way, onto the tapestry of existence. These artefacts show us that each of us leaves our footprints in the sands of time.'

First broadcast: April 2020
Duration: 30 minutes per episode

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