50 minutes
June 2020
Download (MP4 SD)

State of the Art 6: Identity

The final film in the series travels to Australia and to the sixth Biennale of Sydney to explore questions about the national and the international, the global and the local. Among the artists encountered are the Ramingining Performance Group and Nabuo Nakamura.

By contrast, the painter Michael Nelson Tjakamarra is filmed in the desert settlement of Papunya. And Imants Tillers presents a different understanding of Australian culture, although he too is concerned with questions of nationality and identity.

Back in London, Lubaina Himid works on murals for the reopening of the Roundhouse arts centre, along with Chila Kumari Burman, Tam Joseph and Shanti Panchal, and the film observes too their colleagues Donald Rodney, Sonia Boyce and Sutapa Biswas, each tackling questions of personal and cultural identity. In the closing sequence, the film speaks with Jean-Michel Basquiat about his painting and his collaboration with Andy Warhol, raising further provocative questions about politics and culture, ideas and images.

Complete Series on DVD and download
Episode 1 History
Episode 2 Value
Episode 3 Imagination
Episode 4 Sexuality
Episode 5 Politics
Episode 6 Identity

More on our Blog:

State of the Art returns  6 November 2006
Basquiat and the return of history 19 April 2018