BBC 丑陋的美丽 (2009)

现代艺术中的美丽消失了吗？有的思想家这么认为，他们觉得现代艺术已经无法把握真正的美。然而艺术评论家Waldemar Januszczak却不同意。Has beauty disappeared from modern art? Several influential modern thinkers insist that it has. And this belief has inspired them to publish a clutch of recent books which claim that modern art is no longer capable of capturing true beauty: that beauty has gone from art. Art critic Waldemar Januszczak fiercely disagrees, believing that great art is as interested in beauty as ever. Art's search for beauty has manifested itself in depictions of the idealised female form, glorious landscapes, lovely flower studies and perfectly arranged renaissance altar pieces - but where does this search continue today? We know so much about the atomical make-up of our universe that the search for beauty can seem old-fashioned or unscientific. And because so much horror and darkness have passed through modern times, the quest for 'beauty' can even be dismissed as escapist and irrelevant.But of course, it isn't. Waldemar Januszczak would argue that the need for transcendent beauty in art is greater than it has ever been. And - most importantly - art knows this. Beauty is out there. You just have to know where to find it. However, beauty today can be electronic or scientific; subtle and elusive. It can be found in the LCD sculptures of Tatsuo Miyajima or the subtle light installations of James Turrell. Carl Andre discovers a stern modern beauty in squares of industrial materials dropped around a goods yard. The cancer paintings of Damien Hirst find a terrible modern beauty in the deformed human anatomy. These and other great searchers after beauty are the subject of this film.The world today needs beauty more than it has ever needed it - and modern art is one of its few suppliers. “我们的问题是，我们知道得太多了，我们太过理解身处的世界，它被衡量、分析、挑拣，神秘的东西一个个消失了。我想，我们想念它们。今天的科学家们或许可以告诉我，我的身体里有多少个原子。但是他们永远不能告诉我，为什么莫里齐奥·卡特兰把半头马塞在墙上……（又举了几个艺术家作品的例子）……这一切好像都很荒谬，而那却是它们宝贵的原因。在一个被过度了解的世界，它的神秘感和魔力都被剥夺。我们需要无法解释的东西，过去有很多……现在几乎没有了，那就是艺术的用武之地。艺术并不是要列出我们所知道