A highly original, wide-ranging, and judiciously illustrated exploration of an increasingly global art scene In the past, writers and critics such as Goethe, Ruskin, and Clement Greenberg perpetuated particular ideas about art and even dictated these ideas to the artists themselves. Today, artists no longer have to follow one prevailing theory and the art world is less centralized in particular cities: New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Beijing all offer rich environments to artists but none are designated as the exclusive center of the art world. In Global Art Compass, Alistair Hicks demonstrates his belief that no single curator, critic, or dealer should monopolize our view of what is happening in the art world today, but that by listening to the artists themselves, we can gradually make out an ever-evolving web of patterns, relationships, and themes. Organized by continent and including extracts from interviews with artists from around the world, the book offers a fresh view of the contemporary art world through artists from France, Albania, Slovakia, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, The United States, China, India, and beyond. The range of artists whose work is explored includes Laure Prouvost, Anri Sala, Roman Ondák , Gabriel Orozco, Sandra Gamarra , Cai Guo-Qiang, and Nandan Ghiya, among many others. The results of Hicks’s approach clearly show that the preoccupations of artists in the 21st century are largely universal: that ever-faster communications are balanced by a resistance to globalization; that an awareness of the unprecedented complexity of our world is equaled by a rising skepticism of the systems that impose order on our lives; and that while art is seen by many as a commodity, it also has the power to be a regenerative tool. 150 illustrations, 131 in color

The Global Art Compass: New Directions in 21st Century Art

Arts & Photography

Hicks, Alistair

History & Criticism

Thames&Hudson

The Saatchi Collection is unique. Perhaps best known for its American and European Art, in recent years it has expanded to focus on the extraordinarily creative works of art produced by British, and British-based, artists, and now offers a kaleidoscopic view of recent British painting and sculpture. Contemporary British painting, though it has been strong in the UK for some thirty years, is now beginning to take its place on the world stage. The influence of new British sculptors is even more widely felt, yet the literature on them has hitherto been sparse. This is the first book to celebrate these twin British successes. With over 200 colour reproductions "New British Art" offers students and collectors, as well as a much wider audience, an unrivaled opportunity to examine in depth the achievement of more than twenty of the most significant artists of our time.

New British Art in the Saatchi Collection

Painting is becoming a major force in contemporary art and after many years of American and European dominance, Britain is becoming the focus of attention. The British Pavilion at the Venice Biennales, showing the work of Hodgkin in 1984 and of Auerbach in 1986, attracted a great deal of serious interest. This study of British painters examines the work of Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and R.B.Kitaj, and compares their passion for the imagery and materials of paint with the paintings of Lucien Freud, Howard Hodgkin, Michael Andrews and many other young and promising artists. Alistair Hicks is the editor of "Antique" and arts contributor to many arts magazines including "Harper's".

The School of London: The Resurgence of Contemporary Painting

Study & Teaching

Phaidon Inc Ltd

David Evans’ death in a road accident in 1988, at the age of 59, bought to an abrupt end the career of one of the most distinguished watercolorists of his generation. The recent discovery of pictures remaining in his studio, nearly thirty years after the memorial tribute staged by the Redfern Gallery in 1988, provides the opportunity for a new generation to discover his work, though the publication of this first ever book on David Evans and the accompanying touring exhibition. Evans’ strikingly large watercolors, (typically they measure over one meter in height or breadth), span two decades from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, evoking a vision that is still surprisingly potent today. They have all the period charm of the glam rock era they so powerfully evoke but at the same time they are highly charged with the political energy of the period and mirror Thatcher’s Britain, with its Industrial unrest, its towns and country undergoing transformation, the Faulklands war and threat of the Evil Empire, the building of nuclear power stations and the dawn of awareness about Climate Change as a political issue. Evans was an ardent campaigner and environmentalist. The landscapes, (a homage to his native Suffolk) are peppered with industrial plants, landfill, scrap heaps, and encroaching roads and army maneuvers. Urban subjects, similar in some ways to the compositions of Lowry, show factory plants, spectators’ sports, cafeterias, the interiors of museums, city centers and beach scenes.

David Evans (1929-1988)

Liss, Paul

Gage, Pete

Individual Artists

Liss Llewellyn Fine Art

Château La Coste, near Aix-en-Provence, is a unique property that combines sculptural artworks by leading contemporary artists alongside works by some of the world’s best-known architects, all within the grounds of a working organic vineyard. Since 2004 the estate, which occupies an ancient site, has been transformed into an exceptional plein-air museum, and the number of installations grows every year. The spreading collection lies within the walk of a spectacular Art Centre, designed by the world-renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando. On the reflecting pool in front of the building is one of Louise Bourgeois’ giant arachnoid sculptures, Crouching Spider. To the north lies a futuristic winery by Jean Nouvel. By taking one of several routes to the south or west, the visitor encounters such monumental installations as Sean Scully’s sculpture of stacked blocks of limestone, Wall of Light Cubed; Richard Serra’s steel sheets, AIX; and Oak Room by Andy Goldsworthy, a cave of interwoven oak branches, integrated into an old stone wall. Installations by Liam Gillick, Kengo Kuma, Paul Matisse, Sophie Calle and many others punctuate the pathways. And by an ancient Roman route, Ai Weiwei has created another new path up the hillside, using paving stones salvaged from the renovated port at Marseilles. Overlooking the site is a 16th-century chapel restored by Ando and enclosed by a framework of steel and glass. The music and exhibition pavilions, close to the ‘village’ of buildings at the heart of the property, have been designed by Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano respectively. In this stunning new book, Robert Ivy of the American Institute of Architects and the curator Alistair Hicks explore each work of architecture and art installation in depth. Their insightful commentaries are accompanied by specially commissioned photographs by the acclaimed architectural photographer Alan Karchmer. The book is arranged into sections covering all areas of the property, so that the reader is able to experience and discover Château La Coste as a visitor would. In the introduction, Ivy relates the conception, creation and further development of Château La Coste by its owner, Patrick McKillen; while, to conclude the book, Hicks considers the site’s ever-increasing exhibition programme. Throughout the pages, the reader will feel transported to idyllic Provence, to this most remarkable and significant collection of modern and contemporary art and architecture.

Château La Coste: Art and Architecture in Provence

Ivy, Robert

Painting

Merrell Publishers

Ola Kolehmainen's photographs are extraordinarily minimal and almost exclusively depict sections of building façades. The Minimalist austerity of these images is occasionally broken by elements that circumvent this formalism--trees or houses mirrored in the facades.

Ola Kolehmainen: A Building Is Not a Building

ELLIOTT, David

Miller, Arja

Photography & Video

Hatje Cantz

Strongly influenced by traditional Chinese landscape painting, Sandra Kantanen (born 1974) at first sought to replicate its motifs in her art, but it was not until she began printing photographs on hand-painted metal that she attained satisfying equivalent effects. Kantanen digitally processes photographs taken in China, Japan, Finland and Tibet, creating distortion, blurring and streaking with her metal backdrops.

Sandra Kantanen: Landscapes

Träskman, Tomas

The fifth volume in the Helsinki School series, this publication looks back at the development of this group of photographers over the past 20 years. In a collection of essays, international curators, critics and museum directors describe their encounters with the Helsinki School, from the first exhibitions in the late 1990s to the work of the youngest generation. A discussion between Timothy Persons and Alistair Hicks concludes these contributions. The texts are accompanied by installation shots of exhibitions, archival material and recent work by the artists. Not only a history, the book also looks toward the future of the Helsinki School. This volume includes work by Elina Brotherus, Ilkka Halso, Tiina Itkonen, Sandra Kantanen, Timo Kelaranta, Ola Kolehmainen, Tanja Koljonen, Milja Laurila, Anni Leppälä, Janne Lehtinen, Niko Luoma, Susanna Majuri, Nelli Palomäki and Jorma Puranen.

The Helsinki School: From the Past to the Future

Rexer, Lyle

Persons, Timothy

Tannert, Christoph

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