Love, Joy and Despair...

Chris Cunningham

(UK)

All is full of love is a video for a song by Icelandic singer, Bjork. Two humanoid robots are depicted being assembled, kissing and falling in love. The robots despite their awkward rotating components, perform delicate gestures of human intimacy in a clinical environment. Their emotional intensity and sexual tension reverse the science fiction notion of dehumanised machines.

Born Reading, UK, 1970. Lives and works in London, UK. Chris Cunningham worked as a print cartoonist, which prompted both Judge Dredd Magazine and the judges of the UK Comic Art Awards to name him Best British Newcomer of 1992–93. Between 1987–1993 he achieved success in the field of commercials and music videos which followed an accomplished career in feature films. For instance, in 1987, aged just seventeen, Cunningham led the Creature FX team on Alien 3, which was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects. Stanley Kubrick learned about his extraordinary talent in making sculptural robots and in 1994 hired him to work on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (released 2001). In 1995 Cunningham joined the production company Black Dog, and its sister company for commercials, Ridley Scott Associates. He started his second career by directing videos for music artists, including Autechre, Placebo and The Auteurs, before going on to work with Björk, Madonna and Aphex Twin. He then designed the Mean Machine character for Judge Dredd and worked as a co-character designer on Alien Resurrection. Cunningham also began to make commercials in 1996, working for Mary-Sue Lawrence and Rosie Elston at Mustoe Merriman. Since then, he has worked for XFM, through Saatchi and Saatchi, and ITV through M&C Saatchi. Commissioned by TBWA GGT Simons Palmer, he created and directed the award winning Sony PlayStation commercial Mental Wealth.

Selected Exhibitions

2004 Chris Cunningham, curator Johan Pousette, Baltic Art Center Visby, Sweden; Chris Cunningham, Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Poland; MACRO, curator Danilo Echher, Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy; ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK; Temple Bar Properties, Exhibition Centre, Dublin, Ireland; Electric Earth, curator Jason Smith, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia 2003 M_ARS – Art and War, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria; Intricacy, ICA Philadelphia, USA; Electric Body, body on stage, Musée de la musique, Cité de la musique, Paris, France 2002 Chris Cunningham, 5^th gallery Guinness storehouse, Dublin, Ireland; Human Park, Foundation Sa Nostra, Palma de Mallorca; On Intimacy, curator Daniela Bousso, Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil; Chris Cunningham, curator Sibbe Aggergaard, Kunstforeninger Copenhagen, Denmark; Chris Cunningham, curator Klaus Biesenbach, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA; Chris Cunningham, curator Celia Prado, Tensta Konsthalle, Sweden; Without Consent, CAN – Centre d'Art Neuchâtel, Switzerland; Happy Outsiders, British Council touring exhibition, Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (catalogue); Chris Cunningham – Videos: All is Full of Love, flex, Monkey Drummer, curator Joachim Jaeger, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany; Human Park, Istitut de Cultura in Barcelona, Spain (catalogue); Chris Cunningham – Videos: flex, Monkey Drummer, Windowlicker & Come to Daddy, The Big Video Screening, curator Barnabas Bencsik, Contemporary Art Museum, Budapest, Hungary 2001 Chris Cunningham, curator Luis-Martín Lozano, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico; Today's Utopia, curator T. Kiefer, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Germany (catalogue); Desktop Icon, curator Iliyana Nedkova, Foundation for Art & Technology, New Media, Scotland; Egofugal, curator Yuko Hasegawa, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan (catalogue); 7th Istanbul Biennal, curator Yuko Hasegawa, Istanbul, Turkey (catalogue); Plateau of Mankind: 47th Venice Biennale, curator Harald Szeemann, Venice, Italy (catalogue); Chris Cunningham – flex, curator Barnabas Bencsik, MEO, Contemporary Art Collection, Budapest, Hungary; On the Body, curator Karin Post, Groninger Museum, The Netherlands; Sur-Face, curator Pontus Kiander, Lund Kunsthalle, Sweden (catalogue); Chris Cunningham – flex, curator Suzanne Dunn, Edinburg Festival, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland; Chris Cunningham – flex, curator Rutger Wolfson, De Vleeshal Kunsthalle, Middleburg, The Netherlands 2000 Apocalypse, curators Norman Rosenthal and Max Wigram, Royal Academy, London, UK (catalogue); Chris Cunningham – flex, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, UK 1999 Exit, curator/selector Stuart Morgan, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (Windowlicker, 1st Prize); Video Vibe: Art, Music and Video in the UK, curator Cristiana Perrella, British School in Rome, Italy

Music Videos and Film Industry

1999 All is Full of Love (Björk) 1998 Windowlicker (Aphex Twin); Frozen (Madonna) 1997 Only You (Portishead); Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin)