艺术书籍翻开新篇章

Art books that get to the fine print of arts and culture

© Thomas Prior 2020 courtesy Loose JointsAmen Break by Thomas PriorTitled after a four bar drum solo that changed the course of music, Amen Break by Thomas Prior looks at New York’s standstill in 2020. Momentous issues around health, race and the economy compose a rhythm which will be present in the tune of history for years to come. As a documentary photographer, Prior’s perspective provides context to sensationalist snapshots of these times that many of us have become accustomed, and perhaps desensitised, to. Published by Loose Joints and printed as a large-format newspaper, the series is a thoughtful response to history happening in real time with proceeds benefiting NYC’s largest community food bank. loosejoints.bizWriter: Sophie Gladstone

Photography © Gareth WilliamsStuff Left by Gareth WilliamsRevealing the strange chaos that often exists behind the scenes of photography, Gareth Williams has self published Stuff Left. Unclaimed ephemera from an East London studio are documented with an even eye, highlighting their absurdity. We are left wondering the story behind an art director’s discarded fake bible or an inflatable surfboard. Testament to William’s imaginative mind are the narratives he imagines attached to these objects, often anthropomorphising or sympathising with them.  Alongside the joy in these curiosities, Williams hopes this past year has given us time to better consider the magnitude of objects we acquire and discard. gareth-williams.co.ukWriter: Sophie Gladstone

Images from Constructed Landscapes by Dafna Talmor. Constructed Landscapes, by Dafna Talmor For Talmor, Constructed Landscapes stems from a place of ‘frustration’ with landscape photography, one the artist has referred to as ‘photographic agoraphobia’. In her early work, Talmor focussed on interior scenes, with hints of the outside world, which led to developing her ongoing photographic series Constructed Landscapes, with recent work shown at Sid Motion Gallery in late 2019. Through fragments of outdoor scenes in different locations of personal significance, from Israel, her country of birth, to the UK, where she has been based for over 20 years, colour negatives are stitched together to create an otherworldly vision of the outside world. In Constructed Landscapes, Talmor blends fact and fantasy; personal and universal; digital and analogue processes to form a coherent whole that defies specificity. Published by Fw:Books.fw-books.nlsidmotiongallery.co.uk​dafnatalmor.co.ukWriter: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Samuel. © Alys Tomlinson from Lost SummerLost Summer, by Alys Tomlinson Alys Tomlinson’s forthcoming release is a poignant reminder of the many events that ground to a halt during the pandemic. For Lost Summer, the British photographer turned her lens towards 44 young people whose proms were cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions. Within these black and white portraits, shot with parks, gardens and other outdoor locations between June and August, each teenager is dressed or suited for an end-of-school prom that never came to be. Tomlinson has just been declared the winner of the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize for the series, which is on display in the National Portrait Gallery’s virtual gallery until March 2021. Lost Summer is available now, with an accompanying exhibition at HackelBury Fine Art, London.hackelbury.co.ukalystomlinson.co.uknpg.org.ukWriter: Harriet Lloyd-Smith

Images from Counting Till Ten, by Isabelle Wenzel. Design and edit by Jurgen MaelfeytCounting Till Ten, by Isabelle WenzelDrawing together performance art and sculpture, photographer Isabelle Wenzel also happens to be a trained acrobat. In Counting Till Ten, she plays a game of physical improvisation before the shutter clicks and captures her contortions. Direct and instinctive, Wenzel works fast as both model and photographer, merging both into a symbiotic movement. Mistakes are an essential part of this interesting process for the German artist. As viewers we experience a heightened awareness of our own bodies, Ultimately Wenzel asks ‘What is it like to be a physical being?’. Published by Art Paper Editions. artpapereditions.orgWriter: Sophie Gladstone

Dylan and Gerald. Courtesy of Sunil Gupta and Stanley BarkerLovers: Ten Years On, by Sunil Gupta Following the breakup of his first long-term love in 1984, Sunil Gupta set about photographing other couples. At the time, the emotive series was a way to process the end of a relationship, but has now grown into a time-capsule of the lives of London’s gay couples during the 1980s. These were complex times as while the law and public attitudes towards gay men had been improving, HIV/AIDS had just arrived resulting in a cruel media campaign equating gay men with sickness and depravity. In Lovers: Ten years on (published by Stanley/Barker) we see monogamous relationships coming into their own, in the most moving and varied pairings. More of Gupta’s socially engaged works can be seen at his first major retrospective ‘From Here to Eternity’, is on view at The Photographers Gallery until January 2021. stanleybarker.co.uksunilgupta.netWriter: Sophie Gladstone

Extract from Études, by John Marx. Photography: John SuttonÉtudes, by John MarxÉtudes – The Poetry of Dreams + Other Fragments is a new book from ORO Editions, exploring the architectural drawings and poetry of San Francisco-based architect John Marx. Marx, a principal at Form4 Architecture, has contributed paintings for a series in The Architectural Review, and the richly detailed watercolours instantly evoke a sense of time and place that goes far beyond the conventional architectural rendering. There are over 80 images in the book, each conjuring up realms and forms that suggest a world of hazy neo-surrealism. One of the accompanying essays explores the historic role of watercolour in presenting architectural futures - it was the style of choice for centuries before photorealistic digital renders raised our expectations to stratospheric levels, removing all aspects of mystery in the process. Marx’s work operates on a different level, and the fragmentary, dream-like worlds his paintings conjure up are paired with his own poetry, created a rounded, immersive monograph designed to get lost in. Writer: Jonathan Bell

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