Graffiti Wars

A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this comic satire of the state of contemporary art.

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.

When their latest work is buffed by a rival crew, two determined graffiti writers embark on an elaborate plan to bomb the ultimate location: the New York Mets' Home Run Apple.

Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century – the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now… the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

A young street artist in East Los Angeles is caught between his father's obsession with lowrider car culture, his ex-felon brother and his need for self-expression.

Exploring the pre-fame years of the celebrated American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and how New York City, its people, and tectonically shifting arts culture of the late 1970s and '80s shaped his vision.

Paris, 1964. The Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, one of the most accomplished and respected artists of his generation, asks his friend, the American writer James Lord, to sit for a portrait, assuring him that it will take no longer than two or three hours, an afternoon at the most.

Venturing from Venice Beach to Watts, Varda looks at the murals of LA as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures. She casts a curious eye on graffiti and photorealism, roller disco & gang violence, evangelical Christians, Hare Krishnas, artists, angels and ordinary Angelenos.

A Dickens classic brought thrillingly up to date in the teeming heartland of modern London, where a group of street smart young hustlers plan the heist of the century for the ultimate payday.

In the 1980s Keith Haring blazed a trail through the galleries and nightclubs of downtown New York's art scene. Rebellious and ingenious, Haring chose to operate both inside and outside the art world. Inspired by the city's graffiti scene, he made New York's subways, tarpaulins and walls his canvas. This new feature documentary blends stunning archive and an edgy soundtrack, with tender and candid first-hand accounts of Haring. It tells the extraordinary story of an artist who lived and created with a boundless energy, throughout the social, cultural and political counter-revolution of the 1980s.

Dr Richard Clay goes in search of what it is that has made us scribble and scratch mementoes of our lives for more than 30,000 years. From the prehistoric cave paintings of Burgundy in France, through gladiatorial fan worship in Roman Lyons to the messages left on the walls of Germany's Reichstag in 1945 by triumphant Soviet troops, time and again we have wanted to leave a permanent record of our existence for our descendants. And it may be that this is where what today we call art comes from - the humble scratch, graffiti.

Two young kids in love, one young graffiti artist and the other a foster-child, find trouble on the mean streets on the other side of the river in New York City. Officer Charles Banks finds young Danny tagging subway cars and then catches Teiresa selling drugs for another mislead teen, Kirk. The officer, instead of turning both of them in, gives both teens a chance to make more of their lives together. Changing their ways turns out to be more challenging than first thought.

Adrift in the lush, nocturnal urban landscape of THE GRAFFITI ARTIST, Nick (Ruben Bansie-Snellman) is a post-modern urban hero asserting his anarchistic agenda on the endless maze of virgin exterior walls that comprise downtown Seattle and Portland. For this iconoclastic young visionary, the vast wall surfaces of deserted alleys and train yards are at once a daunting symbol of capitalist oppression and a texturally rich, seamless tableau ripe for exploitation to amplify his artistic dialectic of anger and rebellion.

A reclusive college student finds social media fame as a disguised street artist who reveals his story through vandalism.

Three amateur artists are given four hours to paint, in watercolour, the same scene or landscape, often with widely different interpretations. At the end of the four hours, the guest professional artist for the week judged the paintings and selected the winner, who would then appear in a regional final, and if successful would compete in the end of series final.

Beautiful and naïve Maggy Lunel arrives in Paris completely broke. She becomes an artist's model and the toast of Paris, attracting the attention of Picasso-like painter Julien Mistral, an arrogant and selfish man who places his work above everything. Their paths diverge as Mistral's art catches the eye of a rich American woman who becomes his patroness and eventually his wife. During the war years in France, Mistral collaborates with the Nazis in order to continue with his work, a decision that will come back to haunt him years later. In the meantime, Maggy has a daughter named Teddy who grows up and falls in love with Mistral with whom she has a child named Fauve. As Mistral ages, he comes to terms with his selfish past and wartime betrayal through his art, leaving a beautiful legacy for his daughter, Fauve.

In an absorbing study, Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of a national art that conveys passion, precision, hope and renewal. He juxtaposes escapism with control and a deep affinity with nature against love for the machine. The fascinating story takes us from the towering cathedral of Cologne, the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and paintings of Grünewald to the gothic fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, the Baltic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and the industrialisation lent expression of Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. As the series progresses, it presents a rare focus on the cultural impact of Hitler's obsession with visual art, reveals how art became an arena for the Cold War and examines the redemptive work of the "visionary" Joseph Beuys – the most influential artist of modern times.

Journalist Fiona Bruce teams up with art expert Philip Mould to investigate the provenance or attribution of notable artworks.

Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists.

John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about painting and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender. Exploring the layers of meaning within oil paintings, photographs and graphic art, Berger argues that when we see, we are not just looking - we are reading the language of images.

Andrew Graham-Dixon embarks on his most ambitious journey yet, an exploration of the rich, exciting and diverse art history of the United States of America

First broadcast on October 2, 1989, these 18 original 30-minute episodes provide a panorama of 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture, and studies the art masterpieces as reflections of the Western culture that produced them.

Compelling stories from the forefront of Scottish arts and culture

It is a nationwide search to find the best landscape artist. Filmed at picturesque locations around the UK, contestants paint National Trust properties for a chance to win a £10,000 commission for a British institution's permanent collection. Through several rounds, winners are selected to advance to the semifinal, and then to the final. Judging the competition are British art historian Kate Bryan, independent curator Kathleen Soriano, and award-winning artist Tai-Shan Schierenberg.

Mary Beard gives a personal and provocative take on the nude in Western art, from Ancient Greece to the present. Just why do artists and viewers seem so obsessed by nudity?

Art historian Waldemar Januszczak uncovers the secret meanings hidden within some of the greatest paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Seurat .

A fresh look at the life and legacy of the iconic artist Leonardo da Vinci, positing that he was a gay outsider who used his work as a way of hiding his true self. Each episode will examine one of da Vinci’s artworks for hidden clues about a tortured artist struggling for perfection.

Art historian James Fox tells the story of our ever-changing relationship with nature through the lens of some of the world’s most extraordinary artwork.

Fern Britton presents this revival of the fondly remembered daytime watercolour painting competition. Talented amateur artists are challenged to paint a picture of a scenic location with their efforts judged by a professional artist.