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02.06.03

NORTH EAST & CUMBRIA TV

Art connoisseur faces his critics in the north

Inside Out, BBC ONE (North East & Cumbria) , Monday 2 June, 7.30pm

London-based art critic Brian Sewell travelled north to meet his critics in the new series of Inside Out, which returns to BBC ONE North East & Cumbria for its third run tonight (Monday 2 June).

After writing in his London evening newspaper column that the Cobra exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art should be displayed in the capital - where it would find a more sophisticated audience - he accepted an invitation from Inside Out to see for himself the cultural renaissance on Tyneside.

Mr Sewell is shown round Newcastle and Gateshead by Viz founder Chris Donald, who takes him to the Cobra exhibition at Baltic; on to the Gateshead Millennium Bridge; to lunch in The Strawberry pub opposite St James's Park football ground; on to the Laing Art Gallery; and finally to Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North.

Mr Sewell's first comment about Newcastle as he steps off the train at Central Station is: "It's very Eastern European isn't it? Sort of the outskirts of Zagreb."

On Newcastle he says: "It's dinky. I am surprised everybody knows who I am."

During an interview with BBC Radio Newcastle's breakfast presenter Mike Parr, Mr Sewell says: "Forgive me, but I think Newcastle is pretty hideous and not getting any better."

On the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, he says: "It looks like one of those old-fashioned machines that you use for slicing eggs."

On the Angel of the North, he says: "It's a totem. It's a fetish. It's just there, but don't tell me it's a work of art.

"Don't tell me that it has become like one of those things that you can come back to over and over again and still get that wallop in your stomach that a real work of art will give you every single time. It's bad engineering."

But he does give the thumbs up to the Laing Art Gallery and Grainger Street.

Mr Sewell caused a controversy in his newspaper article, but in tonight's programme he claims he has been misrepresented in the media.

He adds: "We have been debating the word ignorant and I use the word correctly in the sense of not knowing."

But his Tyneside visit is enlightening to his host Chris Donald as well.

Chris says: "I thought that Brian thought that the exhibition was too good for us."

But while walking around Cobra, an exhibition of abstract art from the late 1940s, Mr Sewell says: "I would just love people to see this because then they could all see how it all began to go wrong.

"I think it's all crap. This explains what goes on in infant schools and this explains what goes on in art schools now. It all started with Cobra."

But he denies saying that the North East is not sophisticated enough to appreciate modern art.

"I simply said there was a more sophisticated audience in London, which must be true," he says.

His honest – and sometimes deliberately provocative – observations appear to go down well with listeners to BBC Radio Newcastle's breakfast phone-in show when given the chance to express his opinions without media spin or interpretation.

Mr Sewell adds: "It's been very good rediscovering the Laing Art Gallery and Grainger Street. I am whole heartedly in favour of moving things away from London or sharing them.

"A spread of culture is something which is dear to my heart and has been part of my ideas and part of what I have preached ever since I became an art critic."

In ending the programme, Chris Donald reflects: "As we said goodbye, I realised I had come to like Brian.

"He arrived calling us ignorant and left saying we just lacked experience. He had not changed his opinion, but at least we understood each other better."

Notes to Editors

BBC ONE's Inside Out must be credited if any of this story is published. Pictures for press use only are available by contacting BBC North East & Cumbria Press Office.

Also on this week's programme - Scientist's radiation fears of North Yorks base

Inside Out investigates the disappearance of actor Leslie Howard - BBC ONE West (30.05.03)

Morris seeks out weird and wonderful - BBC ONE North West (30.05.03)

Freeview offers the BBC's eight television channels, interactive services from BBCi, as well as 11 BBC radio networks.

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