Merrell 2002

256pp Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 1858941873

25.5 x 29 cm English text. Softcover

Working outside the white walls of the gallery or the black box of the theatre or the cinema, Artangel has commisioned a series of highly ambitious projects with exrtaordinary artists in a range of unexpexted buildings and landscapes.

This book surveys the production of projects such as Rachel Whiteread's 'House', Matthew Barney's 'Cremaster 4', Douglas Gordon's 'Feature Film', Tony Oursler's 'The Influence Machine' and Jeremy Deller's 'The Battle of Orgreave' over the past decade.

Looking at each Artangel commission of the past ten years, this book ofgfers a unique insight into the way in which the visioins of individual artists are stretched by an engagement with space, history and enviroment.

The book contains commentaries and testimonies by many of the artists with whom Artangel has worked over the past ten years, as well as extensive photographs of each project.

Artangel Co-Directors James Lingwood and Michael Morris are interviewd by Michael Craig-Martin and Lisa Jardine and a series of essays by London-based writers Claire Bishop, Alex Coles, Joe Kerr, Lynn MacRitchie, Alan Read, Jonathan Romney, Adrian Searle and Marina Wrner introduce a range of key critical issues.

Price:  £29.95

Ursula Blickle Stiftung 2002

208 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 3775712542

16.5 x 24 cm English/German text. Hardcover

At first sight it is brand-new pure Tokyo Pop. But the publication The Japanese Experience - Inevitable shows far more than the successful cloning of morphed Manga motives with extensive painting, emphasizing two-dimensionality. It represents eight positions of contemporary Japanese art and scrutinizes their complex visual vocabulary. In proceeding this way, references to Japanese and western art traditions perceptible in the paintings, watercolors, drawings, sculptures, and videos shown here stand out just as acquisitions of mass culture motives would, from the realms of Manga (comic) or Animé (animated film), for instance. But it's not only the visual repertoire which is new and surprising, but also the artistic methods and strategies, which are being used by the artists in order to conquer medial picture worlds and/or a public, untouched, to a large extent, by contemporary art so far. Already with the juxtaposition of - with almost three by six meters space-filling paintings like Magic Ball - Positive and Magic Ball - Negative by Takashi Murakami with videos, T-shirts, soft-toys, skateboards, and other Japanese artist-made "Merchandising Products" virtually available in the Web, it becomes clear that the deterritorialization of pictures has long since reached a new quality.

The artists: Jun Hasegawa, Masahiko Kuwahara, Mr. (Masakatu Iwamoto), Shintaro Miyake, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito, Aya Takano

Texts by Margrit Brehm, Gregor Jansen


Price:  £22.50

British Council 2002

124 pages Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 0863555047

17 x 22 cm English text. Softcover

Reality Check brings together 16 contemporary British photographers and film/video makers in an exhibition which explores the camera’s capacity to transform real experience (whether through re-enactment and visual replay or through close observation and obsessive documentation) into the realm of the poetic. Kate Bush’s essay explores the notion of ‘reality check’ (that self-conscious moment of taking stock) in relation to the artists included in the exhibition, focussing on themes of the dislocated subject, painting the everyday, fabulous realism and politics personified.

Brett Rogers and Alex Farquharson contribute critical texts on each of the 16 participating artists.

The exhibition and catalogue have been produced by The British Council in association with The Photographers’ Gallery London.

artists include: Roderick Buchanan, kr buxey, Phil Collins, Alan Currall, Graham Fagen, Ori Gersht, Dryden Goodwin, Luke Gottelier, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Nigel Shafran, Lesley Shearer, David Shrigley, Keith Tyson, Michelle Williams, Shizuka Yokimizo, Bettina von Zwehl


Price:  £14.95

Schirn Kunsthalle 2002

272 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 3775712143

25.5 x 28.5 cm English text. Hardcover

Exhibition Schedule: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main September 28 - December 1, 2002 Tate Liverpool December 20, 2002 - March 23, 2003

Shopping signifies more than the pure purchasing of goods. Strolling, looking at, choosing, buying and consuming goods have long become vital parts of urban life in the 20th century. Shopping is an essential ritual of public life, creating and transforming identity. Ever since Walter Benjamin's description of the flaneur in the Paris arcades, the complex interchanges between consumer culture and art have become an issue worthy of discussion, and the book Shopping is the first extensive publication to be dedicated to this topic. It documents and analyses the fascination of fine artists, architects, and film makers with the increasingly sophisticated means of seduction in shop windows, department stores and shopping arcades. Extensive pictorial material serves to illustrate the interaction between art and the consumption of goods, using works by Eugène Atget, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Christo, Duane Hanson, Barbara Kruger, Jeff Koons, Andreas Gursky, and many more.

Texts by Chantal Béret, Rachel Bowlby, Anne Friedberg, Thomas Girst, Boris Groys, Christoph Grunenberg, K. Michael Hays, Martin Hentschel, Max Hollein, Thomas Kellein, Eva Kraus, Michael Lüthy, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Rolf Quaghebeur, Julian Stallabrass, Katharina Sykora, Mark C. Taylor


Price:  £29.95

2002

64 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN

17.5 x 22 cm English text. Softcover

This publication marks the completion of an nine month project entitled Visualising Geography which involved 18 artists and geographers in a series of collaborations, and also comprised workshops, discussions, presentations, and a work-in-progress exhibition.

The book considers the varied working processes of academic and creative endeavours and reveals both their distinctive and shared attributes. It provides a forum to explore, through example, a variety of cross-disciplinary collaborations. This in turn provokes a consideration of what is meant by collaboration, beyond the notion of the artist illustrating or creatively responding to the research based activity of the academic.

Juan Cruz + Luciana Martins, Matthew Dalziel, Louise Scullion + Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Jeremy Deller + Adrian Palmer, David Gilbert, Jacqueline Jeffries + Rob Kemp, Janice Kerbel + Felicity Callard, Nils Norman + Vandana Desai, Kathy Prendergast + Catherine Nash, Richard Wentworth + Phil Crang

Texts by Gillian Rose, Catherine Nash, Kathy Prendergast, Felix Driver and Ingrid Swenson.


Price:  £7.50

Hatje Cantz 2003

448 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 3775713565

16.5 x 24 cm English/German text. Softcover

Is the computer language going to become the lingua franca of the global information society? Under its heading Code-The Language of Our Time, this year's Ars Electronica-the annual festival for art, technology, and society in Linz-will be exploring software and digital codes. Code has become a central notion in our modern, informed society: it stands for the dominant role of information technology, for the transfer of our knowledge and communication to digital databanks and nets, and has become synonymous with control and programmability. The significance of code as a codex and set of rules, as well as a system of signs, also circumscribes the position of software in art and society: code is both the tool for and the expression of artistic work. Code as a set of commands, as a computer program, and as a language of global digital communication systems defines the rules and principles of our time. This book is a documentation of the symposia, exhibitions, performances, and interventions in public space with which artistic, scientific, and sociopolitical contributions explore this topic at the Ars Electronica 2003.


Price:  £24.95

Phaidon 2002

352pp Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 071484246X

22.5 x 29 cm hardcover

Vitamin P explores the work of a vibrant new generation that is revitalizing the traditional, but continually updated, medium of painting. Included are 114 of painting’s leading practitioners, who were nominated by esteemed critics, curators and other experts from around the world. Each artist is represented by numerous examples of his or her work, accompanied by an explanatory text and short biography. Vitamin P illustrates the richness, eclecticism and dynamism of painting today. It is a critical sourcebook and reference work for seasoned art world veterans as well as newcomers to contemporary art.

Artists: Tomma Abts, Franz Ackermann, Nader Ahriman, Haluk Akakce, Brian Alfred, Laylah Ali, Kai Althoff, Francis Alys, Ghada Amer, Carole Benzaken, Simone Berti, Peter Bonde, Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, Jane Callister, Merlin Carpenter, Denis Castellas, Angela de la Cruz, John Currin, Stephane Dafflon, Ian Davenport, Verne Dawson, Gabriele Di Matteo, Ding Yi, Markus Dobeli, Atul Dodiya, Peter Doig, Vladimir Dubossarsky & Alexander Vinogradov, Marlene Dumas, Cecilia Edefalk, Gia Edzgveradze, Inka Essenhigh, Pia Fries, Bernard Frize, Ellen Gallagher, Tim Gardner, Andrew Grassie, Joanne Greenbaum, Katharina Grosse, Eberhard Havekost, Dan Hays, Arturo Herrera, Federico Herrero, Hong Seung-Hye, Gary Hume, IRWIN, Sergej Jensen, Yishai Jusidman, Johannes Kahrs, Ziga Kariz, Bhupen Khakhar, Toba Khedoori, Karen Kilimnik, Carla Klein, Michael Krebber, Idomsak Krisanamis, Jim Lambie, Sean Landers, Michael Lin, Tor-Magnus Lundeby, Michel Majerus, Margherita Manzelli, Fabian Marcaccio, Mona Marzouk, Suzanne McClelland, Lucy McKenzie, Julie Mehretu, Beatriz Milhazes, Yan Pei-Ming, Miquel Mont, Sarah Morris, Muntean/Rosenblum, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Caro Niederer, Manuel Ocampo, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Phillips, Bernard Piffaretti, Avery Preesman, Monique Prieto, Rob Pruitt, Mantalina Psoma, Chatchai Puipia, Tal R, Michael Raedecker, Neo Rauch, Daniel Richter, Matthew Ritchie, Peter Rostovsky, Murat Sahinler, Wilhelm Sasnal, Thomas Scheibitz, Adrian Schiess, Daniel Schlier, George Shaw, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Kate Shepherd, James Siena, Dirk Skreber, Miha Strukelj, Hiroshi Sugito, Djamel Tatah, Jose Toirac, Fred Tomaselli, John Tremblay, Luc Tuymans, Adriana Varejao, Richard Wright, Yek Lisa Yuskavage, Zhou Tiehai


Price:  £39.95

76pp Colour reproductions throughout. ISBN 0953675572

17 x 23 cm English text. Softcover

Published to coincide with the exhibition of the same name at Milton Keynes Gallery, Cornerhouse, Manchester, Angel Row, Nottingham and Tullie House, Carlisle.

Air Guitar explores the relationship between art and rock music from the perspective of the artist as rock music fan. Since the 1970s, rock music has provided an enduring frame of reference for a generation of visual artists. For many of the artists exhibiting in Air Guitar rock music is a constant source of inspiration for their work, for others, it is the subtle influence that underpins their practice.

Artists: Maike Abetz & Oliver Drescher, Dave Allen, Sean Dower, Sam Durant, Luke Caulfield, Douglas Gordon, Peter Harris, Paul Housley, Scott King, Christian Marclay, Paul McDevitt, Jonathan Monk, Dave Muller, Seamus Nicolson, James Pyman, George Shaw, Ross Sinclair, Bob & Roberta Smith, Frances Stark, John Strutton, Jessica Voorsanger, Michael Wilkinson, Stephen Willats

Price:  £14.95