Free Thinking: Artist Tom Phillips at 80; How do we save our plants?
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2017
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
The artist Tom Phillips talks to Philip Dodd about his career as he marks his 80th birthday. His works range from sculptures, like a tennis ball with his own hair, to commissions for the Imperial War Museum and Peckham, and portraits of subjects including Sir Harrison Birtwistle and the Monty Python team. His interest in literature is seen in his version of Dante's Inferno and art made from reworking the text of a Victorian novel, in addition to his post card collection, photographic diaries and his role as a Royal Academician.
Plus, as scientists and policymakers gather at Kew to take stock of the world's plant diversity, Philip is joined by botanist Pippa Greenwood, conservationist Murphy Westwood, and the 'Plant Messiah' Carlos Magdalena to consider the lilies.
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena is published on the 1st of June.
Connected Works by Tom Phillips runs at the Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road, London from May 26th to July 1st. The South London Gallery hosts the world premiere performance and an audio-visual installation of his opera Irma on the 16 and 17 September 2017, drawn from his Victorian novel artwork A Humument.
Producer: Craig Templeton Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's |
| 0:27.5 | out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.1 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:39.9 | Hello, I'm Philip Dodd. |
| 0:43.8 | And in this arts and ideas download from the BBC's free-thinking team, |
| 0:49.9 | an artist decides in 1966 to buy a book, any book, |
| 0:53.3 | the first book he can find that costs threpanes. |
| 0:59.9 | His art minds this obscure book in innumerable ways for the next 50 years, |
| 1:05.4 | including composing out of it an opera, Irma, to be performed this autumn. |
| 1:09.1 | It is not usual for an artist to compose an opera. |
| 1:12.6 | Then Tom Phillips, whom we'll meet later and whose studio our visitors, is unusual in many ways. There's a sly wit about much of his work, so it comes |
| 1:18.8 | as no surprise that he loved meeting as well as drawing the Monty Python team. I played ping pong |
| 1:25.2 | with each of the pythons, I think, except the one that died. And then |
| 1:29.4 | I started drawing them and they were fun to be with. I think the funniest evening I've had in my |
| 1:36.2 | life was the python's wake for their dead comrade when they, I think it's very strange, it's kind |
| 1:43.0 | a funerary event that was hilarious. |
| 1:46.2 | And I think people who can make me laugh like that, |
| 1:48.3 | like Dame Edna, |
| 1:49.6 | whom I've never portrayed, |
| 1:52.1 | although we have a running engagement |
... |
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