Tintin
2nd April 2021, 17:01
Adam Curtis, documentary filmmaker extraordinaire combines fluid brushstrokes with acute observations in the medium of documentary reportage. One of the very finest exponents of this craft who presents history in a way accessible, revealing, and educational to the viewer.
He has been favourably compared to Picasso by some and there can be little doubt that he has made - and continues to make - the very highest quality visual journals.
The Avalon Library contains downloadable examples of his work, to include his most recent 6 part series from February 2021 Can't Get You Out of My Head (https://avalonlibrary.net/?dir=Can%27t_Get_You_Out_of_My_Head_%282021_documentary_series%29_dir_Adam_Curtis) along with perhaps my personal favourite The Mayfair Set.
In an interview from 2012, best summed up by Hans Ulrich Obrist:
Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a
number of serial documentaries and films for the
BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage
and a wide range of avant-garde filmmaking
techniques. The films are linked through their
interest in using and reassembling the fragments
of the past – recorded on film and video―to try
and make sense of the chaotic events of the
present. I first met Adam Curtis at the
Manchester International Festival thanks to Alex
Poots, and while Curtis himself is not an artist,
many artists over the last decade have become
increasingly interested in how his films break
down the divide between art and modern political
reportage, opening up a dialogue between the
two.
This multi-part interview with Adam Curtis
began in London last December, and is the most
recent in a series of conversations published by
e-flux journal that have included Raoul Vaneigem,
Julian Assange, Toni Negri, and others, and I am
pleased to present it in the coming issues the
journal in conjunction with a solo exhibition I have
curated of Curtis’s films from 1989 to the present
day. The exhibition is designed by Liam Gillick,
and will be on view at e-flux in New York from
February 11–April 14, 2012.
– Hans Ulrich Obrist
Interview source - Part 1: e-flux (https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68236/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/)
Interview source - Part 2: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/33/68302/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-ii/
PDF download: Hans Ulrich Obrist - In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part I (http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8948439.pdf) (from 2012)
PDF download: Hans Ulrich Obrist - In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part II (http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8950272.pdf)
--------------------------
Part 1
http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8948439.pdf
He has been favourably compared to Picasso by some and there can be little doubt that he has made - and continues to make - the very highest quality visual journals.
The Avalon Library contains downloadable examples of his work, to include his most recent 6 part series from February 2021 Can't Get You Out of My Head (https://avalonlibrary.net/?dir=Can%27t_Get_You_Out_of_My_Head_%282021_documentary_series%29_dir_Adam_Curtis) along with perhaps my personal favourite The Mayfair Set.
In an interview from 2012, best summed up by Hans Ulrich Obrist:
Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a
number of serial documentaries and films for the
BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage
and a wide range of avant-garde filmmaking
techniques. The films are linked through their
interest in using and reassembling the fragments
of the past – recorded on film and video―to try
and make sense of the chaotic events of the
present. I first met Adam Curtis at the
Manchester International Festival thanks to Alex
Poots, and while Curtis himself is not an artist,
many artists over the last decade have become
increasingly interested in how his films break
down the divide between art and modern political
reportage, opening up a dialogue between the
two.
This multi-part interview with Adam Curtis
began in London last December, and is the most
recent in a series of conversations published by
e-flux journal that have included Raoul Vaneigem,
Julian Assange, Toni Negri, and others, and I am
pleased to present it in the coming issues the
journal in conjunction with a solo exhibition I have
curated of Curtis’s films from 1989 to the present
day. The exhibition is designed by Liam Gillick,
and will be on view at e-flux in New York from
February 11–April 14, 2012.
– Hans Ulrich Obrist
Interview source - Part 1: e-flux (https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68236/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/)
Interview source - Part 2: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/33/68302/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-ii/
PDF download: Hans Ulrich Obrist - In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part I (http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8948439.pdf) (from 2012)
PDF download: Hans Ulrich Obrist - In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part II (http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8950272.pdf)
--------------------------
Part 1
http://worker01.e-flux.com/pdf/article_8948439.pdf