BBC Four Goes Pop

This August, BBC Four leads a week-long celebration of Pop Art, with programmes across BBC Four, Radio and Online.

For BBC Four Goes Pop, the BBC has commissioned three of Britain’s leading pop artists - Peter Blake, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips - to create three new channel idents for BBC Four, to run throughout the season. The trio starred in the seminal 1962 Ken Russell documentary about Pop Art, Pop Goes The Easel, when the movement drew on popular imagery which blurred the boundaries between 'high' art and 'low' culture.

The BBC’s week-long celebration of Pop Art will look at the influence of the art movement through special programmes on BBC Four, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC 6 Music.

Programmes on BBC Four include a documentary presented by writer and art critic Alastair Sooke, who champions Pop Art as one of the most significant - and influential - art movements of the 20th century; Steven Smith seeks to get closer to Andy Warhol, the man and artist, by experiencing a day in the life of the Pop Art superstar; whilst Peter Blake and Derek Boshier provide insight into their working practices in What Do Artists Do All Day?

BBC Arts online (bbc.co.uk/arts) will be the digital home for all Pop Art content, featuring exclusive programme extras and archive content as well as its own bespoke Pop Art collection and links to specially commissioned iWonder guides.

Cassian Harrison, Channel Editor, BBC Four, says: “Pop Art remains one of the striking and dynamic cultural movements of the 20th Century. It is the moment when high art and mass-production collided for the first time; reshaping our visual landscape and launching a whole new generation of art ‘stars’. BBC Four is delighted to go Pop in celebration of their fabulous maverick creativity.”

Alastair Sooke says: "More than 50 years after it first irked the critics, Pop Art still suffers from all sorts of misconceptions and prejudices. It continues to be written off as superficial, silly and trivial - but in my opinion it is the most important movement of modern art, because it brought Modernism to the masses and provoked serious questions about society. In our age of selfies and social networking, we are all living in a world defined by Pop. For me, it was a privilege to meet so many of the men and women who pioneered this hugely significant global art movement - as well as some of the younger artists who are keeping Pop's raucous spirit alive."

Lauren Laverne, says: ‘The Pop Art movement was so ground-breaking and influential it went beyond art into the music, design and film of the time. In my 6 Music show I’ll be looking at the women of Pop Art, icons such as Debbie Harry and Nico, so expect a palate of brilliant tunes, special guests and enlightening discussion as my listeners and I explore this creative powerhouse.’

BBC Radio 6 Music

6 Music Celebrates Pop Art with a curated selection of music and programming in honour of this bold, influential creative movement. One ‘reason to be cheerful’ will be a programme about the life and career of iconic performer Ian Dury, presented by one of the most famous and influential British Pop Artists, Peter Blake. Blake taught Dury at Walthamstow Art College and will be playing tracks by him in this hour-long special, Peter Blake: Ian And Me (Sunday, 1-2pm).

Across the week, Lauren Laverne will be looking at the women of Pop Art, such as Nico and Debbie Harry (Monday-Friday, 10am-1pm). In Now Playing Tom Robinson will be curating the Pop Art-themed music suggestions of the 6 Music audience (Sunday, 6-8pm), and in a Freakzone special Stuart Maconie will be taking listeners on a journey into the weird and wonderful world of this artistic movement (Sunday, 8-10pm). Plus, all week The Album Of The Day selections will be relevant to the Pop Art movement, and there will be related music and documentary programming from the BBC Archive broadcast in the overnight slots.

Talking in his programme, Peter Blake says: “Pop Art was about trying to make an art that would be read in the same way as you would listen to music… Ian and I had a rapport, in that we both loved rock ‘n’ roll, but he was a rebel.”

Fifteen Minutes - BBC Radio 4

Radio 4 will broadcast Fifteen Minutes, a play by Sarah Wooley about the last days of Pop Art when Modern Art became commodified big business, and how Andy Warhol - with a little help from Truman Capote - invented celebrity culture.

Set in New York in the heady days of Studio 54, in the late 1970s and early 80s, Fifteen Minutes looks at the later period in Andy Warhol’s life when Andy feared he was becoming forgotten, was clinging onto fame and earning money by hustling rich patrons for portrait commissions. The play explores Capote and Warhols’ relationship, Capote’s decline and Warhol’s resurgence, ending with Warhol at a celebrity birthday party. A young computer geek is setting up a computer for the host and he shows Warhol and Keith Haring that the computer has a drawing programme. They both begin to experiment with this new way of making art that will one day allow anyone to make art regardless of talent. This is the future and the computer.

Radio 3

Radio 3 will broadcast Andy Warhol’s Factory Friends, an archive programme presented by Paul Morley. The cultural radio station will also collaborate with BBC Arts Online for a Pop-Art Archive.