Contemporary British Art
Category: I
Year: 2019
Location: London
Artist: Roy Willingham
When found, this paperback was beginning to fall apart so I carefully dismantled the rest of it removing old glue and threads until I had a set of folio sheets and two covers (the spine was beyond rescue). As the book's subject matter is contemporary art I decided to change the format to reflect the fact that the development of contemporary art is not linear.
The sheets were reorganised into a new sequence which echoes the fragmented nature of art movements and groupings and by turning the original folios into bifolded pages it now offers a range of readings. The original text can still be read but now requires rather more input by the reader, alternatively new narratives are created by following the new page sequence and making use of the ability to fold back pages - which give allusions to Surrealism and Art & Language and perhaps other 'isms' of the Twentieth century. The new arrangement also allows a far larger variety of juxtapositions for the image plates and the possibility of reassessing them in terms of purely abstract compositions by virtue of their new format.
The pages had been much annotated when I found the book, which adds yet another story and the scribbles which adorn various pages may themselves be commentary or art. I have contributed to the book by adding a few pages which help to highlight the fact that 'contemporary' is a flexible notion while also hinting that perhaps the content is not as objective as it might be.
The condition of the pages show that this book was extensively used and referred to in its first life and acquired a very individual character from its readers' contributions so I think it is only fitting that new readers should feel free to contribute their own opinions on 'contemporary art' as text, image or marginalia.
Year: 2019
Location: London
Artist: Roy Willingham
When found, this paperback was beginning to fall apart so I carefully dismantled the rest of it removing old glue and threads until I had a set of folio sheets and two covers (the spine was beyond rescue). As the book's subject matter is contemporary art I decided to change the format to reflect the fact that the development of contemporary art is not linear.
The sheets were reorganised into a new sequence which echoes the fragmented nature of art movements and groupings and by turning the original folios into bifolded pages it now offers a range of readings. The original text can still be read but now requires rather more input by the reader, alternatively new narratives are created by following the new page sequence and making use of the ability to fold back pages - which give allusions to Surrealism and Art & Language and perhaps other 'isms' of the Twentieth century. The new arrangement also allows a far larger variety of juxtapositions for the image plates and the possibility of reassessing them in terms of purely abstract compositions by virtue of their new format.
The pages had been much annotated when I found the book, which adds yet another story and the scribbles which adorn various pages may themselves be commentary or art. I have contributed to the book by adding a few pages which help to highlight the fact that 'contemporary' is a flexible notion while also hinting that perhaps the content is not as objective as it might be.
The condition of the pages show that this book was extensively used and referred to in its first life and acquired a very individual character from its readers' contributions so I think it is only fitting that new readers should feel free to contribute their own opinions on 'contemporary art' as text, image or marginalia.