William Raban (b.1948, Fakenham)

William Raban is a London-based artist and filmmaker.  After achieving a BA in Painting at Saint Martins School of Art in 1971, he completed his MA in Fine Art at Reading University in 1974. Between 1972 and 1976, he was the manager of the London Filmmakers Co-op workshop. Currently Professor of Film at the University of the Arts London, Raban has been Senior lecturer in Film at Saint Martin's School of Art from 1976 to 1989. Raban's fascination with landscape dates back to the early1970s and has been a constant element of interest and research throughout all his artistic production. On the occasion of the Tate Tanks opening program 2012, his work has been recognized as significant contribution to expanded cinema by showing his early multi-screen films together with the three-screen work Duchamp’s Dissent, a new commissioned site-specific digital installation.

Raban has produced eleven Video Paintings in collaboration with Open Gallery. Characterized by naturalistic subject matter and vivid colors, these works present formal construction and documentary style. Far from being used as a tool for representing reality or symbolizing abstract meanings, Nature has been framed as to present itself in all its truthfulness and visual richness.

Retrospectives include Periférico Film Festival, A Coruña (2016); Arsenal Cinema, Berlin (2016) and Oberhausen Film Festival (2015) Cine Esquema Novo, Porto Alegre, Brasil (2013), Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2007), Multimedia Centre, Zagreb (1983), Museum of Modern Art, New York (1979). Major group exhibitions include: Shoot Shoot Shoot: London Film-Makers Co–op 50th Anniversary and Book Launch, Sallis Benney Theatre, Brighton (2016),Troubled Waters exhibition at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2013) Between Land and Sea, Peninsular Arts Gallery, Plymouth (2008), Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Tate Modern (2006), Making History, Tate Liverpool (2006), Describing Form, Tate Modern (2005), Best of UK film short films, Cannes Film Festival (2004), X-Screen, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, (2004), A Century of Artist’s Film in Britain, Tate Britain, (2003), Shoot Shoot Shoot, Tate Modern (2001), Live in Your Head - Concept and Experiment in Britain, 1965-75, Whitechapel Gallery (2000), Open Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery (1992), Symphonies of the City ICA (1994), New Pluralism, Tate Modern (1984), Film as Film, Hayward Gallery (1978), Perspectives on British Avant Garde Film, Hayward Gallery (1977), Documenta 6, Kassel (1977), Festival of Expanded Cinema, ICA (1976), Filmaktion, Gallery House (1973) Festival of Underground Film NFT & ICA (1973) Young Contemporaries, Royal Academy (1970).

William Raban's work is featured in the following Series:
Traces of Dreams
Water (2006)