Two decades-worth of British art

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A book no fine art student should be without, reckons Annelise Lewis

Contemporary Art in the United Kingdom by Artworld

 This is a beautiful book with some challenging, thought provoking articles that could be beneficial to the undergraduate student, especially of the Arts. The majority of the book provides stunning full or half-page prints, from the last 24 years, by some of the key artists that represent the region. An important feature of this book is the rich appendix, which provides a variety of art and culture essays. The culmination of these essays and broad range of imagery equate to a fully immersive representation of the UK art scene for the last 30 years, with a strong focus upon the development of the Young British Artists movement. What sums it up well is ‘The ‘scene’ was never the art, but a by-product of the sociability and speed whence it arrived in a particular context’.

The book provides a ‘timeline’, essay, catalogue of artists (organized into media although this is not obviously signposted), appendix of previously published essays and a selection of artists’ biographies. The timeline begins in the 1950s with the ‘School of London’ and finishes April 2013 with the death of Margaret Thatcher. It consist of 6 pages, a page per decade, and picks out historical dates along with art and cultural dates. This timeline does not, however, seem terribly relevant.

The image selection is beautiful, yet for no stated reason only some of the artists get written descriptions of them and their work (about 300 words). Unfortunately, most get only their name and the artwork name. The main essay, ‘Adventures close to home: An introduction to British art since the 1990s, or the conditions of possibility from “Then” to “Now”’is by John Slyce, a writer and art critic, art editor of  the British quarterly cultural magazine, Bedeutung and a tutor in painting at the Royal College of Art. He provides a focused discussion on the contemporary art scene in London from the 1980s to now.

The appendix consists of five essays, detailed below, all written in the last 20 years. This collection makes the book particularly good for for a fine art undergraduate. As an ex-fine art student I wish I had had this book when I did my course. It touches on many areas, including some important movements, events and theories, and subtly gives advice on being a practising artist.

‘Technique Anglaise: Current trends in British art’(1991) is is a transcript from a discussion between several of the artists featured in the book. They debate the role of the British artist’s work within culture.

‘An “other” history: Feminist art in Britain since 1970’ is by Amelia Jones, an American art historian, who specializes in feminist critique and curation. She questions the definition of feminist art, with its complex identification. She re-evaluates the role and standing of feminist art.

‘Mad for it! Philistinism, the everyday and the new British art’(1996) is by John Roberts, a writer, critic, curator and professor at the University of Wolverhampton. He explores the changing status of the art scene in the 1980s from high art to an art more socially engaged with popular culture and current political, economic and social issues.

‘Another year of alienation: On the mythology of the artist-run initiative’(1998) is by Malcolm Dickson, a Glaswegian curator and director of Street Level Photoworks. Drawn from his experience in Glasgow, this essay is about the function of artist-run initiatives, the inevitable struggles involved and the difference between the artists and their counterpart collectors/art historians.

‘Altermodern manifesto: Postmodernism is dead’(2009) is by Nicolas Bourriaud, a French critic involved with Tate Britain and Beaux-Arts de Paris. His manifesto consists of a description of what he feels is the current situation, with our new cultural mix and globalization through ease of communication, travel and accessible exploration of time and space.

Contemporary Art in the United Kingdom by Artworld is published by Black Dog Publishing Limited, London. 218 pp. 127 colour and 47 mono illus, £19.95. ISBN 978-1-907317-68-2