This Is Modern Art

Channel 4 1999

E2: “Shock! Horror!”

Art Critic Matthew Collings asks, “Do you like being afraid?” More and more modern art is shocking. We get inside Matt’s head as he analyses the nervous breakdown of Goya “The Father of Shocks” and the lights out effect his influence has had on many modern artists from Damien Hirst to the Chapman Bros, it’s bad in there.

E5: “Hollow Laughter”

Matt goes in search of “the cool French guy, Marcel Duchamps, whose “Ready Mades” are sardonic jokes that treat the audience with the contempt that they seem to enjoy. Martin Kippenberger’s bad smelling egg jokes are part of his oeuvre, while Gavin Turk exhibits a pile-up of recycled art.

2000 Winner BAFTA TV Award for Best Arts Programme or Series

2000 Winner Royal Television Society Award Best Arts Series