Download our Isaac Julien Podcast and get an exclusive tour of the exhibition.

Summing up the life of Derek Jarman in one small exhibition may seem like an impossible task. A filmmaker, poet, writer, artist, gardener and civil rights campaigner, it's fair to say that Mr Jarman was a bit of an all-rounder, a creative whirlwind who left an incredible legacy despite the premature and harrowing nature of his death. Fmor this very reason it is difficult not to approach the Serpentine Gallery's latest show dedicated to the great man with some trepidation.

For gay men and women of a certain age Jarman is little short of a saint, the figurehead of intelligent debate on sexuality at a time when such things were still considered shocking, and the instigator of some of the most challenging and exciting pieces of film to come out of England in the 1970s and 80s.

I prepared myself for a sense of disappointment, assuming that the whole idea just wouldn't quite capture Derek Jarman's essential magic. How wrong I was - in fact this varied collection, entitled Brutal Beauty, is a huge success, a must see exhibition that should delight fans and hopefully inspire a whole new generation to explore Jarman's work.

The Serpentine is not a big space, so quality rather than quantity was always going to be the order of the day. The fact that the show's curator, Isaac Julien, was a friend and collaborator of Jarman's, and is a respected artist in his own right, no doubt contributed to Brutal Beauty's succinct power.

At the heart of the whole endeavour lies Derek, a 76 minute long film tribute directed by Julien and centred on a day-long interview with Jarman. Long time muse Tilda Swinton narrates the piece, adding a unique insight into the life, work and personality of the late artist and director. I was lucky enough to get there early and grab one of the massive beanbags which litter the gallery floor just as the film was beginning (it's probably a good idea to check the starting times before going along as the film is on a constant loop throughout the day) and soon ended up riveted.

Derek reveals Jarman to be a rather polite and charming middle class fellow, a fact which perhaps makes the confrontational nature of his output even more surprising.

The room next door houses a number of screens, each showing snippets from his rarely seen early 8mm film pieces. The influence of Julien's own installation work is obvious here, but the films are 100% Jarman - ghostly figures in fancy dress, bizarre and surreal vignettes devoid of an idea of narrative and created just for the pure hell of it.

The other piece of film work on show is the presentation of Jarman's final and most avant-garde masterpiece, Blue. Created in his last days when Jarman was racked with illness and almost blind, Blue consists of a rich azure screen accompanied by the voiceovers of four actors describing the experience of living with HIV and AIDS.

A gallery is the natural home of this film - with the large scale screen reminiscent of a vast Yves Klein canvas, and the starkly beautiful soundtrack played over a top quality sound system, this becomes a truly mesmerising experience, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.

Jarman was a painter too and Julien has included a few of his distinctive pitch canvases in the exhibition. Again there is an essential anger to these heavy, almost sculptural creations - pretty they are not, filled with smashed glass, crucifixes and scratched references to death and destruction - but then again, Jarman's heyday was also the time of punk and despite his innate public schoolboy properness, he was in many ways one of the founding fathers of this most aggressive of movements.

A more quiet side to the man can be seen in the lightboxes created by Julien using images of Jarman's garden at Dungeness. Fashioned using stones, driftwood and flotsam and jetsam, this unique plot proved yet again than Jarman was a man addicted to creativity, never happy unless he was making or doing, and the inclusion of these images in the show highlights the essential duality to his personality - Jarman was after all the punk who loved poetry, the artist who painted canvases with titles like 'Fuck Me Blind' who also loved nothing more than pottering around in his cottage garden.

It is this duality, the combination of powerful spirit with intelligence, which makes both Jarman and his work so interesting and it is the fact that Brutal Beauty has captured that essential diversity which undoubtedly makes it such a worthwhile and rewarding project.

To coincide with the exhibition Tate Britain will also present a selection of Jarman's experimental Super 8 films, which chronicle an elusive, bohemian world of mystical landscapes, stony ruins and the gleaming, flashing qualities of fire and light. Called Lightbox: Derek Jarman, the exhibition will run from 5 April – 1 June 2008.

Brutal Beauty: Derek Jarman, curated by Isaac Julien
Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
020 7402 6075 / www.serpentinegallery.org

23 February-13 April 2008

Download our Isaac Julien Podcast and listen in as the curator takes you on a tour of the Derek Jarman: Brutal Beauty exhibition. Take it along to the exhibition itself and have an exclusive guide!

Throughout March and April The Gate,  Ritzy and Greenwich Picturehouses are showing a selection of Jarman’s films. Find out more at www.picturehouses.co.uk.

Buy the DVD of Blue online now and save yourself some money to put towards Tony Peake`s excellent biography of Derek Jarman and the DVDs of The Tempest, starring Toyah Wilcox, and Jarman’s most personal and innovative film, The Last Of England.