Phaidon 2002
160pp Colour and B&W repoductions. ISBN 0714840025
25 x 29 cm English text. Softcover
Vito Acconci is a key late twentieth-century pioneer of performance, video, installation and the exploration of architectural space. His work has expanded art's boundaries, moving beyond the gallery or museum into shared public spaces. Initially a poet, Acconci began making Conceptual art in the late 1960s. He devised actions, enacted them and documented them with texts, photographs or video. In 1972 he produced the most famous performance installation of its time, Seedbed. In an empty gallery he built a low ramp, concealed beneath which he stimulated himself with sexual fantasies about viewers walking above, speaking his fantasies into a microphone linked to loudspeakers. Startled spectators found themselves implicated in an intimate power relationship between artist and viewer. Since the mid 1980s his work has turned towards experimental architectural projects. In 1988 he set up the architectural practice Acconci Studio, which has public commissions around the world and was featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2001. Acconci's work remains of vital importance not only to Conceptual art and performance, but to contemporary architectural theory and practice. Price: £24.95
Anthony d'Offay 2001
46 pages Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 0947564845
25.5 x 26.5 cm English text. Hardcover
'The "aggregations of materials" - oils, inks, pencil drawings, paintings, and prints - that constitute Ellen Gallagher's art do not tell stories. Her paintings are not literary or representational although the trace of the figure is there to be reckoned with. And yet, while never simply referential, the work clearly relies upon a number of referents such as minstrel caricature and the use of penmanship-paper. In other words, the mechanisms of representations completely occupy her work, not in terms of what is represented (e.g. here is a face) - but in terms of reinventing, or better distorting, the very terms of representation itself, what [Gertrude] Stein calls the distortion of form. In this sense she is decidedly modernist" Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
With full colour reproductions throughout and essay by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve Price: £20.00
OUT OF STOCK
Kunst Museum Wolfsburg/Hatje Cantz 2001
120 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 3775710604
26.5 x 21 cm English/German text. Softcover
The installation Electric Earth, which received the Premio Internazionale at the 1999 Venice Biennale, brought international recognition to the media artist Doug Aitken. In this video piece, a dancer roams a transitory realm of wasted landscapes. Here Aitken, whose subjects are natural landscapes and cityscapes, links the electrified structures of our urban world with the nervous system of the human body. At the same time, it becomes quite obvious that the American artist has developed the artistic visions he uses in his visual productions from the field of commercial video production: Aitken first directed a large number of popular music videos shown on music channels in America, Asia and Europe.
The artist's book, laid out in a landscape format, grants fascinating views of natural and urban landscapes and structures. The character of the publication "is rather like a video installation than a film: you don't have to look through it passively from A to Z ... it offers up a space in which the reader can move freely ... in order to create a story in the here and now, in the flow of time." (Gijs van Tuyl.) Price: £26.50
Guggenheim Museum 2002
530 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0810969351
23.5 x 32 cm English text. Hardcover
NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN!
Filled with hundreds of Matthew Barney’s fantastical images, this comprehensive volume, which accompanies a major touring exhibition, surveys the artist’s CREMASTER cycle—an epic five-part film project that uses the biological model of sexual difference as its conceptual departure point.
A major essay by Nancy Spector articulates the series’ diverse themes and explores the artist’s innovative aesthetic vocabulary; interviews with key collaborators—composer, costume designer, make-up artist, technicians, and actors—reveal his working process. In addition to stills from the five films—including the final episode, CREMASTER 3, which will be shown in London later this year—the book features related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and storyboards. Price: £50.00
Book Works 2001
56 pages Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 1870699572
17 x 23 cm English text. Softcover
Evolving out his previous work on pedagogical structures and the acquisition of knowledge, Reading Karl Marx is based upon Rainer Ganahl's organisation of reading seminars as a platform for the discussion of issues and ideas. Often seen as an extra-artistic activity the notion of reading and discussion is used by Ganahl a a means to question artistic practice as a form of knowledge production. The supposed centrality of the artists function is destablilised in this book as Ganahl becomes a member of the discussion group. The publication itself is generated by his reading seminars on Marx in various educational institutions throughout Europe and the UK. Alongside documentary photographs of the seminars, a discussion between the artist and editor situates the practice amidst the wider cultural and social sphere. Price: £7.50
Book Works 2000
146 pages Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 0870699467
26 x 20 cm English text. Softcover
Diamond Sea by Doug Aitken is a photographic journey through Diamond Areas 1 and 2: a highly secure 70,000 square kilometre area along the coastline of the Namibian desert. Aitken's photographs reveal how the man-made corporate owned landscape and the vast topographic expanse of the Namibian desert are equally subject to narrative construction. Price: £12.00
RGAP 2002 Price: £9.50
Book Works/Dundee Contemporary Arts 2001
72 pages Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 187069953X 22 x 25 cm English text. Hardcover
Christine Borland is an artist who likes to play detective. Her practice has constantly embraced scientific thought and research as a means of exploring the fragile yet resilient nature of our humanity questioning notions of good and evil - in particular the ethical and moral issues raised by human genetics.
Progressive Disorder is an extensive and fascinating document of photographs and text of Christine Borland¹s exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts in November 1999 informed by a period of research at Glasgow University. It employs a variety of materials used in DNA research to explore issues of morality, mortality, individuality and the construction of identity. Utilising the stunning aesthetics of the most basic living forms, including a jellyfish whose DNA is used in human genetic research - Progressive Disorder charts the gap between that which cannot be rationalized by science nor expressed by art. Price: £17.50
Artangel 2002
160 pages olour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 1902201132
17 x 24 English text. Softcover
Initiated by artist Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave was the partial re-enactment of one of the most violent clashes between striking miners and police during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. The original stand-off took place on 18 June 1984, the re-enactment some 17 years late, on 17 June 2001.
This book contains a series of personal accounts by people who were all in different ways involved with the strike and the re-enactment.
For example, there is the story of Mac McLoughlin (former miner and policeman on duty during the strike), who talks about the build up within the police force to that memorable confrontation. Stephanie Gregory (Women Support Group) reminisces about the effects on family life and about how many women supported their partners throughout the strike and afterwards. Finally, Howard Giles, who was involved with the precise orchestration of the re-enactment gives a moment to moment analysis of the battle strategy of the events on 18 June 1984.
The texts are accompanied by a wealth of images, pamphlets, news clippings, photos from people’s personal scrapbooks, song texts, and a section with photographs of the enactment.
The accompanying CD contains over an hour of interviews with former miners and some of their wives. Price: £19.95
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 2002
200 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 3775711716
29.3 x 23.9 cm Softcover
CREMASTER 3, first presented in February 2002, concludes Matthew Barney's CREMASTER cycle that consists of five films. He began working on the cycle in 1994. The individual parts, however, were not produced in chronological order. Each of the five films is accompanied by a publication; the present volume was uniquely designed as an artist's book by Matthew Barney and contains a multitude of photographs and film stills from CREMASTER 3.
Just like the other parts of the cycle, the film manipulates narrative genres, in this case zombie films and classical gangster movies. The action is staged in the thirties' New York, Saragota Springs and Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. It revolves around a variety of topics such as the "Irish Mob", Irish-American organized crime, Freemasonry and Celtic legends - symbolizing forces that have an impact on Barney's mythological system. The film was made in the Chrysler Building and in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which both create a type of sculptural backdrop for the dramatic plot. Price: £29.95
