Films 

Artist Mari Katayama creates hand-sewn sculptures and photographs that prompt conversations and challenge misconceptions about our bodies. Born with the developmental condition congenital tibial hemimelia, Katayama chose to have her legs amputated at the age of nine. Her wearable sculptures, which also feature in her images, often include limbs, hands and embellished hearts. In this short film, we visit Katayama’s at her studio in Japan and hear about how she uses everyday materials that she finds around her – including her own body, clothes and newspaper clippings – to make her sculptures and images. As she says, 'I use materials that anyone can get anywhere. I think that the needle and the thread are the strongest tools.' Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl

Step into Siena. It’s the beginning of the 14th century in central Italy. A golden moment for art, a catalyst of change. Artists Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti are forging a new way of painting. They paint with a drama that no one has seen before. Faces show emotion. Bodies move in space. Stories flow across panels in colourful scenes. We bring to life a vibrant city of artists collaborating, learning and looking. After centuries of separation, we reunite scenes that once formed part of Duccio’s monumental 'Maestà' altarpiece. Panels from Simone Martini’s glittering Orsini polyptych come together for the first time in living memory. This local artistic phenomenon made waves internationally. Gilded glass, illuminated manuscripts, ivory Madonnas, rugs and silks show Siena’s creative energy spilling over between painters, metalworkers, weavers and carvers across Europe. With over a hundred exhibits made by artisans working in Siena, Naples, Avignon and beyond, see some of Europe's earliest, most exquisite and most significant artworks. The exhibition was organised by the National Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350 8 March – 22 June 2025 Ground Floor Galleries 🎨 Find out more about 'Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350': https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/siena-the-rise-of-painting #NationalGallery #ArtHistory #Siena 🎞 Subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss a video: http://bit.ly/1HrNTFd Follow us on social media! ⭐️ Instagram: https://instagram.com/nationalgallery ⭐️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nationalgallerylondon ⭐️ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/thenationalgallery/ ⭐️ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nationalgallery ⭐️ X, formerly Twitter: https://twitter.com/NationalGallery Help keep the museum accessible for everyone by supporting us here: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/support-us The world's greatest paintings to your inbox. Sign up to receive the latest news from the Gallery: https://bit.ly/3m0FY98 The National Gallery houses the national collection of paintings in the Western European tradition from the 13th to the 19th centuries. The museum is free of charge and open 361 days per year, daily between 10am - 6pm and on Fridays between 10am - 9pm. Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk

A live exhibition exploring the relationship of storytelling and contemporary art through the use of movement, dance and choreography.

Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens is the first major exhibition to focus on the women who married the infamous Tudor king. Exploring agency, influence and the Queen’s lasting cultural impact, this exhibition will take you on a journey through time – from contemporary portraits by Hiroshi Sugimoto and costume from west-end sensation SIX the Musical to sixteenth-century portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger, shown alongside a magnificent tapestry, textiles, books and jewels. 20 June - 8 September 2024 Plan your visit via the link: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2024/six-lives 🎥 Fully Fledged Films

Note: This film includes reference to racism and imagery of racist violence and the Ku Klux Klan. Philip Guston thought hard about the artist's responsibility to bear witness to ‘the brutality of the world‘. Consistently changing and reinventing, he sought to make work that embodies life’s complexities, its beauty, absurdity, humour and suffering. In this short film, curators Michael Wellen and Michael Raymond, conservator Anna Cooper and the artist's daughter, Musa Mayer, recount the story of Guston's life and career, as well as his restless urge to challenge himself creatively. This film was created as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Series: New Perspectives. It includes extracts from the following documentaries: Philip Guston: A Life Lived, directed by Michael Blackwood (New York: Michael Blackwood Productions, 1981). Conversations with Philip Guston, directed by Michael Blackwood (New York: Michael Blackwood Productions, 2003). https://michaelblackwoodproductions.com Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl

Within her work, Jasleen Kaur makes installations by gathering and remaking objects from everyday life to renegotiate tradition and agreed myths, exploring cultural memory and political belonging. While family and community are present in Kaur’s work, she is most interested in how these intimacies meet wider sociopolitical structures. In this film Kaur reflects on her upbringing in Glasgow, where growing up in family-run hardware stores and cash and carries shaped her approach to thinking through objects and materials. She also examines histories impacted by colonialism, asking, ‘Who's doing the writing of history? Who's doing the retelling of it? Which things get remembered and which things do not?’ Subscribe for weekly films: http://goo.gl/X1ZnEl