Royal Academy Of Arts

Critically-acclaimed British actress Juliet Stevenson reads this year’s winning story of the RA and Pin Drop Short Story Award. With this special literary award, the RA and Pin Drop offer a unique platform for emerging and established writers to showcase their short stories. Photo: Portrait of Juliet Stevenson, courtesy of Pin Drop

Giorgione was one of the greatest artists who ever lived, yet it is difficult to establish exactly what he painted. Art historian Professor David Ekserdjian examines in detail the works by Giorgione as well as the artistic influence of this enigmatic master.

“That fair face will as years roll on lose its beauty, and old age will bring its wrinkle to the brow” - Ovid Beauty is habitually associated with youth, especially for women, and artistic portrayals of age and ageing have long been a contentious issue in our society. Painted during his all-too-brief artistic career, Giorgione’s La Vecchia is a rare example of a realistic portrayal of an elderly woman in the early 16th century, a period in which portraits of young, idealised ‘beauties’ were more often celebrated. In her hands, the woman holds a scrap of paper inscribed with the words ‘With Time’, referencing the passage of time and a reminder that we all shall age. Using La Vecchia as a starting point, our panel will explore the depiction of ageing in art in conjunction with wider societal considerations of age and beauty.

Though Giovanni Bellini was still the leading artist in Venice at the turn of the 16th century, a younger generation, including Giorgione and Titian, started to emerge from his shadow. Their innovations, combined with the influence of visitors such as Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, ushered in a new dawn of Venetian art. One of the first artists to arise was also the most mysterious: little is known about Giorgione’s life, and few works can be definitively attributed to him, yet the elusive poetic quality of his work is so powerful that, despite his early death, his legacy was profoundly felt in Venice and beyond. In this podcast, curator Per Rumberg explores the idealised beauty, expressive force and sensuous use of colour that became the hallmark of Venetian Renaissance painting.

Meet Monet protecting his peonies with straw, Caillebotte inspecting orchids in his hot-house, Liebermann planning his Wannsee rose-bower, and Matisse thumbing the latest seed catalogues, in this podcast by Clare A.P. Willsdon, Professor of the History of Western Art at the University of Glasgow. Image caption: video still of the dahlias in Emil Nolde's garden © Royal Academy of Arts

From the 1890s until his death in 1926, Monet created over 500 paintings of his private paradise at Giverny. In this talk, Dr Eric Haskell (Scripps College, Claremont University Centre, California) places the Giverny period within the context of the painter’s phenomenal trajectory, then examines how Monet moved beyond representation to abstraction and thus prefigured the Modern aesthetic in the most subtle of terms. In this podcast, Dr Eric Haskell highlights the relationship between Claude Monet’s gardening aesthetic and painterly techniques as he practised and perfected them in his iconic garden at Giverny. Photo courtesy of Eric Haskell

Claude Monet lived at Giverny for 43 years, from 1883 to his death in 1926. A passionate horticulturalist, his garden became a work of art as well as a subject for his paintings. From the Iris garden to his huge waterlily canvases, the garden at Giverny was the focus for some of Monet’s greatest works of art. In this podcast, James Priest, head gardener at Giverny, is in conversation with garden designer and writer James Alexander-Sinclair, discusses Monet’s cultivation of and relationship with the garden that inspired some of his most famous paintings. Image caption: video still Monet's garden at Giverny © Royal Academy of Arts

In conjunction with Historic England’s exhibition Out There: Our Post-War Public Art (2 February – 10 April 2016), which explores the connections between public art and architecture in the post-war decades, this podcast looks at the future of public of art in Britain. What are the ideals and motivations behind the creation of public art? What are its uses? How can we protect public art threatened by redevelopment? Should we be doing so? What, ultimately, does public art say about us as a society? Image caption: Sculpture by Henry Moore in the Brandon Estate, London / Photo © Owen Hopkins

Sean Griffiths, co-founder of FAT, one of the architects featured in Mavericks, chairs this discussion exploring the different perspectives artists can bring to the making of architecture. Architecture is no longer solely the domain of architects, but of artists too. Recent years have seen the work of a number of different artists cross into what we usually class as architecture, in some instances as far as whole buildings. Whether working on their own or in collaboration with architects, as is also increasingly common, artists bring a very different way of thinking about both the meaning and function of buildings and space. Image caption: A House for Essex by FAT and Grayson Perry RA for Living Architecture (2014) / Photo courtesy of Living Architecture / Jack Hobhouse

In this debate about architectural education and opportunities for young architects, our panel explore if there is any future for mavericks in architecture. What marks out mavericks from other architects is the way they embrace risk – whether professionally, by striking out on their own, or creatively, by refusing to conform to the norms of architectural taste or convention. Recent years, however, have seen the risks for young architects grow considerably. Seven years’ training leaves most architects beginning their careers saddled with tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt, putting pressure on even the best young creative minds to conform. At the same time, as land prices skyrocket developers are becoming more and more risk-averse and less willing to roll the dice and embrace unorthodox or original approaches. Engineering block at University of Leicester, 2010 © John Robertson / Alamy Stock Photo

Beginning with an introduction by Owen Hopkins, curator of Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture, a panel debates the role of mavericks in architecture past and present. What makes an architect a maverick? What uses do mavericks and maverick positions have? How has the meaning of maverick evolved over history? What, above all, does it mean to be a maverick architect in today’s world of parametric design and building information modelling? Speakers: Charles Holland – Director, Ordinary Architecture; co-founder, FAT Owen Hopkins – Architecture Programme Curator, Royal Academy Maria Smith – Director and Co-Founder, Interrobang; former director, Studio Weave Catherine Slessor – writer and critic; former editor, The Architectural Review Sean Griffiths – Professor of Architecture, University of Westminster; co-founder, FAT Image caption: A House for Essex by FAT and Grayson Perry RA for Living Architecture (2014) / Photo courtesy of Living Architecture / Jack Hobhouse

One year on from a major season on the ‘Future of Housing’ in the UK, we look again at this ever more urgent question. In the lead up to last year’s General Election, the RA organised the Future of Housing season, which looked with a critical eye at the various possible futures for housing in the UK. One year on, we survey the changed political landscape, and a housing crisis that, if anything, has only intensified. As the Housing Bill, which notably extends the right to buy to housing association tenants as well as putting a new focus on starter homes, passes through Parliament, our panel consider the challenges and possibilities that have emerged both independently and as a result. Speakers: Jack Self – writer and co-curator British Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 Paul Karakusevic – Partner, Karakusevic Carson Architects Claire Bennie – architect and development consultant; former Development Director, Peabody Richard Blyth – Head of Policy, Royal Town Planning Institute Jane Dudman – Editor,

The idea of a maverick in architecture – and arguably in art, literature and even science – is inextricably associated with the myth of the creative genius. From perhaps Leonardo da Vinci onwards, creative genius has been popularly associated with disregard for social conventions, isolation, and of the individual overcoming adversity – traits that are often understood in masculine terms. In architecture, the creative genius trope has helped give rise to the ‘starchitect’, the name given to an almost exclusively male group of celebrity architects, whose work is defined by its avant-gardist novelty, and signature, iconic forms. As the gravitational pull of the ‘starchitect’ consumes media attention with ever increasing ferocity, our panel discusses its distorting effects and explores what might lie beyond it. To what degree is the ’starchitect’ a creation of the media? In what ways does the ‘starchitect’ system act to exclude women, if indeed it does? How might we begin to celebrate architectural achievements

Orange Prize-winning novelist Lionel Shriver treats us to a short story reading. Shriver ('We Need to Talk about Kevin' and 'Big Brother') reads her short story 'Vermin'. On performing her short stories Shriver says: “When it works I like [the works] better. I like being able to deliver a line well… It’s nice to be able to deliver passages in the spirit that I wrote them, so that you can hear them as I hear them.” In partnership with Pin Drop.

This panel event explored the current state and future potential of contemporary urban gardening. Chaired by journalist and horticulturist Alys Fowler, the subversive and exciting work of guerrilla gardener and author Richard Reynolds, forager John Rensten and artist Wendy Shillam are brought to the table. Image caption: video still of the dahlias in Emil Nolde's garden © Royal Academy of Arts

Monet and his fellow artist-gardeners applied their artistic eye to the composition of their gardens, using nature’s palette of flowers and foliage to create horticultural works of art. In this event, we consider how the artistic principles behind the use of colour and composition can be applied to planting and landscaping to transform garden design, creating harmony or contrast, and evoking different moods and a sense of space. Garden designers Dan Pearson, Tom Stuart-Smith and Sarah Price, and artist Stephen Chambers RA explore how colour is used in modern garden design, in a panel discussion led by critic and historian Tim Richardson. Image caption: video still of the dahlias in Emil Nolde's garden © Royal Academy of Arts

Claude Monet’s artistic and horticultural achievement at Giverny was not unique. Other contemporary artists sought similar fusions between garden design and art. In this talk, MaryAnne Stevens touches upon artists’ gardens in Spain, Germany and Denmark, concluding with one in Norway which sought to provide artistic motifs as well as to fulfil economic, ecological and national ideals. Art historian and curator MaryAnne Stevens discusses the role that the gardens created by artists such as Sorolla, Liebermann, Tuxen and Astrup, played in their search for new modes of artistic expression. Image caption: video still of the dahlias in Emil Nolde's garden © Royal Academy of Arts

Exhibition curator Ann Dumas examines the different ways that artists ranging from Claude Monet to Henri Matisse painted the garden in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Image caption: video still of the dahlias in Emil Nolde's garden © Royal Academy of Arts

Is the gender of an artist significant in the creative process? Does being a female artist influence how a work is created and perceived? How significant is ‘the female gaze’ in contemporary art – work that is presented from a female perspective or reflecting female attitudes. As part of our International Women’s Day 2016 celebrations, a panel of artists discussed what it means to create work from a female perspective in today’s contemporary art world. In this podcast, Eva Rothschild RA, Vanessa Jackson RA and Josie Cockram discuss these issues and the extent to which being a female artist has influenced their work. The event was chaired by Hilary Robinson, Professor of Visual Culture at Middlesex University and editor of 'Feminism-Art-Theory 1968-2014'.

The RA and Pin Drop welcomed Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri for an evening of short fiction and storytelling, inspired by the exhibition ‘Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse’. Ben Okri has published eight novels, including The Famished Road and Starbook, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded an OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore.