Contemporary British Art: An Introduction

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 Art is 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 provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrations (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. xiii)
• Introduction: Cool Britannia, Contemporary Art and the Altermodern (p. 1)
• 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)
• 2 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)
• 3 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)
• 4 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)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Pooke (Univ. of Kent, UK) surveys the last 20 years of British art, focusing on four areas: the art market, painting, installation and sculpture, and lens-based media. Although the book succeeds as a brief introduction to seminal artists, movements (Young British Artists and Stuckists, notably), curators, gallerists, institutions, critics, exhibitions, and theorists, it is by no means an entirely introductory text. For example, readers unfamiliar with basic concepts of modernism and the history of mid-20th-century art might struggle with the chapter on painting. In addition, some of the theories of contemporary art that Pooke puts to the test--altermodernity and postconceptualism--are not sufficiently parsed for general readers. The chapters on the art market and installation art, however, are more approachable for beginning students. The art market is the subject of the first chapter, getting the book off to a strong start and connecting it to the recent trend in surveys of British art to contextualize and critique works of art primarily within an institutional framework. Pooke's chapter on installation art, the third in the book, also foregrounds institutions but provides, in addition, detailed descriptions of installation works and theories about the practice--especially those of Claire Bishop--that will rivet readers. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers. K. Rhodes Drew University