You’ve heard his name and you have undoubtedly seen him on TV.
Now 10 years after making his sell-out Fringe debut, BBC Arts Editor and presenter Will Gompertz returns to Edinburgh once more – for one week only – this August with Double Art History.
Will has learned a lot of new things in this last 10 years – including the basics of comic timing! – which he brings to this not entirely joke-free, fact packed hour in which he leads the audience through all 27-isms of Modern Art.
Previously a Director of Tate Galleries and author of the international best-selling book What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye (Penguin), students of Fine Art have been known to come up after previous iterations of the show claiming they learned more in that hour than their entire three-year degree course.
It all started when Will booked himself in for lessons in stand-up for a Guardian article called ‘How to Talk About Art Without Talking Bollocks’ (published title: Heard the One About the Hibernating Hamster, July 2008), and throughout this banging 60-minute history of Modern Art he treats art differently, cutting through the nonsense and explaining why Tracey Emin’s Unmade Bed is a million-dollar work of art and yours isn’t.
The show finishes with an Art History exam that the teacher expects you to get 100% in, so pay attention in class and you’ll walk out of this hour smarter and more informed, ready to hold your own in a conversation about everything from Naturalism to Tonalism!
Will said: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t laugh, you’ll leave knowing stuff you didn’t know before!”
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Will Gompertz: Double Art History
Underbelly Bristo Square, Ermintrude, 19th – 25th Aug, (3.35pm), runtime 60 mins
Weekend: 23rd – 25th, £16.00 (£15.00)
Weekday: 19th – 22nd £14.00 (£13.00)
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
