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Michael Bracewell

    Souvenir
    The Crypto-Amnesia Club
    Unfinished Business
    The Conclave
    Gilbert and George: Major Exhibition
    Michael Bracewell
    • 2024

      Tim Eitel

      Vorschläge für Nachbilder 2015–2024

      • 112 pages
      • 4 hours of reading

      Tim Eitel initiates an exchange between recollection and painting. The work on his pictures, he says, is "a conversation about reality and memory" in which he engages the canvas. In the course of this dialogue, Eitel reflects on personal experiences, creating a standalone figural-abstract reality that needs to be internally consistent-the canvas has a strong will of its own. That makes the scenes depicted in his paintings analogues or afterimages of a situation rather than renditions of it. They are characterized by a certain openness that enables the beholders to inject their own recollections into the pictorial space as well. The dialogue between canvas and artist thus gives way to a colloquy between audience and finished work. Not by coincidence, many of the paintings by Eitel gathered in this catalog show people in museums: these scenes facilitate the leap into the pictorial space. The beholders have experienced a situation like the one shown in the pictures in the past or are experiencing it right now, and so they are already at the heart of the works; they become part of the painting, and the picture becomes a particle of their recollection.

      Tim Eitel
    • 2023

      The book serves as a tribute to David Bowie's transformation into the androgynous art figure Ziggy Stardust in the early 1970s, capturing the excitement of his rise as a cult star amidst a wave of polyamorous enthusiasm. Compiled in 2015 with Bowie's involvement, it features the work of Mick Rock, Bowie's personal photographer during the Ziggy era, highlighting the iconic imagery and cultural impact of this pivotal moment in music history.

      Mick Rock. The Rise of David Bowie. 1972-1973
    • 2023

      The first novel in twenty years from 'the most under-appreciated of our living fiction writers' (John Burnside)

      Unfinished Business
    • 2022

      Harland Miller

      In Shadows I Boogie

      • 314 pages
      • 11 hours of reading

      Celebrated for his witty interpretations of book covers, Harland Miller's artistry merges pop art, abstraction, and figurative elements. This comprehensive monograph spans nearly two decades of his work, showcasing his evolution from classic Penguin appropriations to unique designs. It includes forty new pieces and features essays by prominent art writers that delve into various facets of his creative process. Miller's iconic paintings have garnered a dedicated following, reflecting his significant impact on contemporary art.

      Harland Miller
    • 2021

      Acclaimed author Michael Bracewell considers Pop pioneer Richard Hamilton, connecting his art to 1960s culture Often described as "the father of Pop art,” Richard Hamilton (1922–2011) explored the postwar world of consumer capitalism and popular culture. Seminal works such as his collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956) and his silkscreen and related series based on a news photograph of Mick Jagger, Swingeing London 67 , came to define an era in which new commodities, mass production, mass media and celebrity came to the fore. His groundbreaking exhibitions and installations influenced curatorial practice in the 20th century and into the next; and his importance beyond contemporary art was demonstrated when he was asked to design the cover of the Beatles’ White Album in 1968.In this book, acclaimed writer Michael Bracewell presents a concise introduction to this deeply complex artist. Written from a personal perspective, it discusses Hamilton’s work in relation to the music, film, and popular culture of the day, with examples from his oeuvre, and features photographs and quotes from Hamilton throughout.

      Modern World
    • 2021

      A lovesong to London in the early 80s: a pre-computer, pre-digital, pre- mostmodern, New Wave age

      Souvenir
    • 2020

      The Scottish artist France-Lise McGurn paints on canvases as well as directly on the walls of exhibition spaces, often combining the two to create an immersive experience. In her work she draws on a collected archive of images from films, club flyers and magazines, as well as her own experiences, ranging from life in a city, partying and dreams to motherhood and female sexuality. Bodytronic refers to the rhythmic, the trance and the moving body. Individual body parts float unrestrained across the different surfaces, connecting the canvases with the wall painting they are placed directly on to. The swift brushstrokes and repeated marks spill freely across canvases onto surrounding surfaces, animating the space with suggestions of pleasure, continual motion and the layered quality of contemporary experience. McGurn's archetypal figures suggest both the distance of city life and the strange intimacy of urban connection. The solo exhibition and accompanying publication show a selection of new works that McGurn produced during the COVID-19 lockdown. Confinement has highlighted for her the gap between private and public lives, specifically the response to certain kinds of behaviour.

      France-Lise McGurn
    • 2019

      classification or affiliation to other schools or movements in art. As affirmed by the thirty-five PARADISICAL PICTURES there is no formalist, aesthetic or conceptual precedent to the ideology and vision they convey with such intensity. The PARADISICAL PICTURES are fantastical, allegorical, narrative, representational, psychedelic, absurdist, modern yet archaic, surrealist-grotesque, inflected with both tragedy and comedy, filled with pathos, touchingly eloquent of human frailty, age and exhaustion. The art of Gilbert & George is a visionary art, above all – reports from a cosmic journey through life that begins on the streets of London. The PARADISICAL PICTURES suggest a chapter in a story that has been unfolding before them and will continue beyond them. This ‘paradise’ is not a destination but a stage on a longer journey. It is a dream of paradise and the exploration of an archetype that is both secular and sacred. The paradise of these PARADISICAL PICTURES proposes a more ambivalent view – a place of biomorphic mutation, exhaustion, watchfulness and possession.

      Gilbert & George - the paradisical pictures 2019
    • 2018

      Michael Borremans: Fire from the Sun

      • 80 pages
      • 3 hours of reading

      Fire from the Sun' highlights Michaël Borremans's new work, which features toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence. Known for his ability to recall classical painting, both through technical mastery and subject matter, Borremans's depiction of the uncanny, the perhaps secret, the bizarre, often surprises, sometimes disturbs the viewer. In this series of work, children are presented alone or in groups against a studio-like backdrop that negates time and space, while underlining the theatrical atmosphere and artifice that exists throughout Borremans's recent work. Reminiscent of cherubs in Renaissance paintings, the toddlers appear as allegories of the human condition, their archetypal innocence contrasted with their suggested deviousness

      Michael Borremans: Fire from the Sun
    • 2017

      What Is Gilbert & George?

      • 180 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      Gilbert and George met at St Martin's School of Art in September 1967. 50 years later, Michael Bracewell has worked with them on this primer, investigating the question What Is Gilbert and George?

      What Is Gilbert & George?