Contemporary British Art: An Introduction

by Pooke; Grant

• ISBN13: 9780415389730
• ISBN10: 0415389739
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The last few decades have been among the most dynamic within recent British cultural history. Artists across all genres and media have developed and re-fashioned their practice against a radically changing social and cultural landscape both national and global. This book takes a fresh look at some of the themes, ideas and directions which have informed British art since the later 1980s through to the first decade of the new millennium. In addition to discussing some iconic images and examples, it also looks more broadly at the contexts in which a new 'post-conceptual' generation of artists, those typically born since the late 1950s and 1960s have approached and developed aspects of their professional practice. Contemporary British Artis an ideal introduction to the field. To guide the reader, the book is organised around genres or related practices painting; sculpture and installation; and film, video and performance. The first chapter explores aspects of the contemporary art market and some of the contexts within which art is made, supported and exhibited. The chapters that discuss various genres of art practice also mention books that may be useful to support further reading. Extensively illustrated with a wide range of work (both known, and less well-known) from artists such as Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Anthony Gormley, Jack Vettriano, Sam Taylor-Wood, Steve McQueen and Tracey Emin, and many more.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction: Cool Britannia, Contemporary Art and the Altermodern	p. 1
Perspectives on the Contemporary Art Market and its Institutions	p. 16
Introduction	p. 16
The contemporary art market	p. 18
Contemporary art, celebrity and private collecting	p. 23
Perspectives on contemporary art patronage	p. 25
The Arts Council's Per Cent for Art scheme	p. 34
Contexts for public art and other commissioning organisations	p. 35
British art awards and prizes	p. 45
The creative economy and cultural regeneration	p. 51
Contemporary art fairs and biennales	p. 63
Notes	p. 65
Post-Conceptual British Painting	p. 72
Introduction	p. 72
Painting: histories, ideas and contexts	p. 75
British painting: cultural politics, dissent and other narratives	p. 81
Place, entropy and the imaginary in contemporary painting	p. 96
Remodernism, Stuckism and film noir nostalgia	p. 104
Gestural and geometric British painting: modernisms revisited	p. 109
Notes	p. 118
Installation Art and Sculpture as Institutional Paradigms	p. 124
Introduction	p. 124
Installations and installation art	p. 126
Site-specific and non-site-specific installations	p. 127
Installation, objecthood and active spectatorship	p. 131
Phenomenology and installation art	p. 133
Installation art, praxis and relational aesthetics	p. 134
Installation practice as a dream-like encounter	p. 137
Paradigms of installation art as immersive experience and subjective disintegration	p. 145
Installations, bodily response and experience	p. 148
Installation, politics and activated spectatorship	p. 153
'Sculpture in the expanded field' - traditions and revisions	p. 168
Sculpture as commodity and appropriation	p. 171
Sculpture, ambivalence and the abject	p. 174
Notes	p. 179
New Media in Transition: Photography, Video and the Performative	p. 184
Introduction	p. 184
Photography: contexts and histories	p. 186
Narratives and countercultures: video and performance art	p. 189
Performance, abjection and other narratives	p. 196
Documentary genres: docu-fiction and social reportage	p. 202
Technical interventions, defamiliarisation and spectacle	p. 221
Portraiture, still life and new media art: objectification and reversals	p. 227
Notes	p. 237
Post-Conceptual British Art: New Directions Home	p. 243
Bibliography	p. 248
Index	p. 265
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