Brontosaurus
Project Description
Brontosaurus is a single-channel video work by British artist and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson (b. 1967, formerly Sam Taylor-Wood). The work features a naked man dancing to techno music, with the footage dramatically slowed down and the soundtrack replaced by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. The resulting contrast transforms an energetic, contemporary gesture into a slow and vulnerable study of the body, emotion and masculinity.
The work exemplifies Taylor-Johnson’s early interest in psychological interiority and the tension between private experience and public identity. By altering both the speed and soundtrack of the original footage, she creates a disjunction between image and sound that shifts the scene from one of physical exuberance towards something more melancholic and introspective.
Brontosaurus belongs to a formative period in Taylor-Johnson’s practice in which photography and video became vehicles for examining intimacy, vulnerability and the construction of selfhood. Related works including Travesty of a Mockery (1995) and Atlantic (1997) similarly stage emotionally charged encounters in which gestures, bodies and relationships become sites of psychological tension.
Taylor-Johnson studied sculpture at Goldsmiths College, London, alongside a generation of artists who came to prominence in the 1990s. Her early photographic works, including Slut (1993) and Fuck Suck Spank Wank (1997), established an approach in which staged images and self-portraiture explored the relationship between external perception and self-identification.
Across her art and filmmaking, Taylor-Johnson has continued to bring private experience into the public realm. Her 2003–04 series Crying Men, for example, depicts male actors in moments of visible vulnerability, while David (2004), commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, presents footballer David Beckham asleep. In both cases, the artist turns moments of psychological exposure into carefully constructed portraits.
Bio
Sam Taylor-Johnson (b. 1967, London) is a British visual artist and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, video and feature film. Her work explores psychological interiority, intimacy and the social narratives through which individual and collective identities are constructed.
Taylor-Johnson participated in the Venice Biennale in 1997 and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zürich, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Fondazione Prada, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Hayward Gallery and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Recent exhibitions include a new series of self-portraits at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome (2022), and The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain (2026).
Project Details
Year: 1995
Artist: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Year: 1995
Curated by: Film and Video Umbrella
Programme: UK/NY
Funding: Arts Council England
Format: Single-channel video
Country: United Kingdom