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Front Row: Scorsese - The Irishman, Risk Season continues, Naum Gabo exhibition

27/01/2020

Scorsese - The Irishman, Risk Season continues, Naum Gabo exhibition

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Scorsese - The Irishman, Risk Season continues, Naum Gabo exhibition

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman, Risk Season continues, Naum Gabo exhibition in St Ives.

We speak to Martin Scorsese about The Irishman.  Is risk sometimes disproportionately applied in the arts? And Naum Gabo exhibition at Tate St Ives.

Martin Scorsese has the most Oscar nominations of any living director though he has only won once, for his 2006 film The Departed. Nominated again this year for The Irishman, he talks about the film’s themes of ageing, guilt and redemption – and about how it would feel to win. 

As part of our season looking at risk in the arts, we consider when risk is disproportionately apportioned to working with diverse talent like women or black artists. The result is that white male practitioners are seen as a safe pair of hands and women and BAME talent are ignored even if they have proven their success in the past. We investigate the scale of the problem and what can be done to change it with Dawn Walton, Head of Revolution Mix theatre group and Clare Binns Joint Managing Director, Picturehouse. 

Artist, engineer, architect and poet, Naum Gabo was a leading spirit in the radical arts flourishing after the Russian Revolution. When the Soviet authorities cracked down on avant-garde art, Gabo worked at the Bauhaus in Germany, collaborated with Diaghilev in Paris, and energised London's art scene. During the war Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson persuaded him to come to St Ives. His work was startlingly spare and made beautiful use of industrial materials. Tate St Ives presents the first major exhibition of Gabo’s work for more than 30 years. Michael Bird, who lives in St Ives and has written about Gabo, reviews the show.

Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Oliver Jones

Main image: Martin Scorsese

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