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Where It's At: recent art and music books |
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I find it difficult to know what
'new and original way' (as Ronald Blythe's back cover quote puts it) David
Boyd Hancock handles the material in his book about 'Five Young British
Artists and the Great War'. It's certainly very readable and engaging, but it's
biographical stance had me running for my art shelves to find some
reproductions and critique of the actual art that Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash,
Mark Gertler, Richard Nevinson and Dora Carrington produced. |
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Much more focussed and enjoyable
is Ian Collins' monograph on John McLean, which features a vast amount of
superb full colour reproductions of McLean's work. However, Collins allows
McLean to disingenuously claim that his 'pictures have no hidden meaning',
which seems to give permission for a certain critical lightness throughout
the volume: only a few critical quotes are to be found among the biographical
information, along with some plaudits by McLean's fellow artists, and one
brief interview. |
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Peter Campbell's takes his art
at a genteel and conversational pace. At...
contains a selection of his writing over a ten year period for the London
Review of Books, and is beautifully
produced if rather expensive. (You can tell Hyphen Press, who are new to me,
are interesting as the catalogue and publicity material that arrived with the
book are beautifully designed and wonderfully tactile.) I rather enjoyed this
volume, as Campbell neither feels the need to bow to current fashion or to
engage with trendy critical stances; he prefers to describe what he sees and
discuss it, usually in a fairly brief manner (that presumably the magazine
column format demands). |
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If some titles seem, to me, to
be rooted in a mistaken focus, Glitch
celebrates digital mistakes and the use graphic designers have made of them.
Here are video and web screengrabs, treated visual feedback, electronic
'mistakes' and incorrectly decoded files all put to good use by a new breed
of applied visual artists. |
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Krautrock could perhaps be seen
as one starting point of the music that became glitch (Kraftwerk and Faust to
Oval anyone?) and despite it's now apparently assured place in musical
history it continues to have little of intelligence written about it
critically or historically. I'm afraid that Black Dog's new book does little
to alleviate this state of affairs. Despite it's all star cast of contributors,
and full colour reproductions throughout, it fails to do more than skim the
surface of the music, and certainly fails to discuss its legacy to any
extent. This is basically a coffee table version of Julian Cope's seminal
paperback of some years ago, and is a wasted opportunity to fill a critical
hole. |
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Far more focussed and critically
acute is Stuart Broomer's new book on Anthony Braxton. Broomer considers the
idea and nature(s) of time in relation to Braxton's extensive oeuvre in a
number of fascinating chapters, with consideration of such intriguing matters
as 'the invention of the audience', 'the cardigan and the march' and 'the
hour-glass on stage'. These, and many other, abstract and tangential ideas,
give Broomer new and inventive ways to consider Braxton's music and it's
context, from solo works through small groups and larger ensembles to the
more recent ghost trance and diamond wall musics. |