Ed Atkins, born in Oxford, UK, in 1982, is best known for exploring the strange but endlessly rich space between the digital world and human experience and emotion. He has taken an unorthodox approach to software and hardware, “misusing” them, as he puts it, to produce videos and animations that reflect on technologies critically and poetically, testing their relationship with the messy world of physicality and feeling. A crucial factor in achieving this is his work in writing and drawing, which offers a counterweight to the digital textures of the video installations.
Ed Atkins at Tate Britain
© Tate Photography (Josh Croll)
Atkins himself is ever-present in the multiple manifestations of his practice, physically and emotionally, and the result is a body of work that, for all its deliberate complexities and confusions, has a profound core of tenderness. He reflects on the transformative experience of encountering the Czechian artist Jan Švankmajer’s animated films on television, the emotional impact of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, his collaborations with the Swiss composer and clarinettist Jürg Frey, and his ongoing engagement with the US literary critic Leo Bersani.
Plus, he discusses life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
Ed Atkins at Tate Britain
© Tate Photography (Josh Croll)
- Ed Atkins, Tate Britain, London, until 25 August; Ed Atkins, Flower, Fitzcarraldo Editions, published on 10 April, £12.99 (pb)
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform. Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include a host of museums and galleries that have shown and collected Ed Atkins’s work, from Tate, featuring the organisation’s four galleries including Tate Britain, where Ed has an exhibition in 2025, to The Chisenhale, also in London, and the New York contemporary spaces The Kitchen and MoMA PS1. The guide to PS1 has in-depth text, video and audio content on its latest exhibitions, by the artists Alanis Obomsawin, Julien Ceccaldi, DonChristian Jones and Whitney Claflin. You can explore Claflin’s first solo museum exhibition in a series of audio recordings, with an introduction by the artist and her descriptions of the form and content of 10 of the works in the show, including paintings, drawings and a video piece.
