Artists

Chris Cunningham

1970	Chris Cunningham was born in Reading, Berkshire. He lives and works in London.
1987 - 1993	Chris Cunningham's success in the field of commercials and music videos, follows an accomplished career in feature films. In 1987, aged just seventeen, Chris led the Creature FX team on Alien 3, which was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects. Chris's earlier work, as a print cartoonist, prompted both Judge Dredd Magazine and the judges of the UK Comic Art Awards to name him Best British Newcomer of 1992-93.
1994 - 1999	Stanley Kubrick learned about Chris Cunningham's extraordinary talent in making models for special effects and hired him to work on the (as yet not released) A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). Chris then designed the Mean Machine character for Judge Dredd and worked as a co-character designer on Alien Resurrection.
1995	Chris 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 Bjork, Madonna and Aphex Twin.
1996	Chris Cunningham also began to make commercials, working for Mary-Sue Lawrence and Rosie Elston at Mustoe Merriman. They described him at the time as 'the best talent in Soho'. Since then, Chris has worked for XFM, through Saatchi and Saatchi, and ITV through M&C Saatchi. Commissioned by TBWA GGT Simons Palmer, Chris created and directed the Sony PlayStation commercial Mental Wealth which received a Silver Award at the D&AD Awards.

Music Videos

1997	Only You (Portishead) - created and directed by Chris Cunningham. This striking video features a little boy rolling and swimming under water trying to reach the surface. Chris received the Best Dance Video of 1998 at the CADS Awards and a Silver Award at the 1999 D&AD Awards. Come to Daddy (Aphex Twin) - created and directed by Chris Cunningham. For his work on Come to Daddy, Chris received the MCM Grand Prix du Jury 1997, three separate awards, Best Video, Best Cinematography and Best Editing at the 1997 Creative and Design Awards, held by Music Week. He also received two Silver Pencils Awards at the 1998 D&AD Awards.
1998	Windowlicker (Aphex Twin) - created and directed by Chris Cunningham. Filmed in LA, this video is the sequel to Come to Daddy. Awarded 'The Best Alternative Video of the Year' at the 2000 CAD Awards. Chris also received two 'Silver Awards' at the D&AD Awards. Frozen (Madonna) - created and directed by Chris Cunningham. The first video from Ray of Light album, set in the Mojave desert.
1999	All is Full of Love (Bjork) - created and directed by Chris Cunningham. For this extraordinary video, Chris received four 'Silver Awards' and the first 'Gold Award' ever given to a music video at the 2000 D&AD Awards. This video features Bjork as a stunning white robot making love to a replica of herself. This was also Chris Cunningham's last music video.

Exhibitions

Chris Cunningham's videos have been exhibited in several video exhibitions. Art critic and curator, Stuart Morgan, selected Windowlicker from among a hundred videos from all over the world, as being the best video representing the 20th century in British Video Art. Morgan included it in the exhibition Exit at the Chisenhale Gallery, East London (4 Dec -30 Jan 2000) and other artists included were Fischli and Weiss, Bruce Nauman, Bas Jan Adler and Christian Boltanski, to name a few.

Video Vibe: Art, Music and Video in the UK at the British School in Rome (11 May - 6 June 2000) included both videos Come to Daddy and Windowlicker underlining the importance of the cross-cutting language of music, clip and video in contemporary art. The exhibition programme of Video Vibe included works by John Currin, Damien Hirst and Hilary Lloyd among others.

Early this year, Chris Cunningham joined the Anthony d'Offay Gallery to pursue a career as an independent artist. His first exhibition at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery opens on 15 September, 2000. Chris Cunningham is included in Apocalypse: horror and beauty in contemporary art curated by Norman Rosenthal and Max Wigram at the Royal Academy from 18 September 2000.

Chris will present two new video projects, demonstrating the importance of film-making and sound in his art, through the collaboration with Richard D. James (Aphex Twin), arguably one of the most talented contemporary experimental music composers working today.

flex, is a 12 minutes video installation intended to awake one's senses through the sound of electronic music and strong, visceral imagery. It is a study on the emotional permutations of coupling, being with another and ultimately of sex.

On show at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery is a two minute video featuring a contemporary musical goddess with multiple arms and a face half human half toy. The machine drums fast, impossibly fast for a human being, a product of the electronic age.

Among Chris Cunningham's forthcoming projects is a new collaboration with Bjork.
During the end of November, the ICA in London will run a Chris Cunningham Retrospective of new video projects and past collaborations.


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