What the Butler Saw contains essays and interviews by Stuart Morgan, one of Britain's leading art critics. Opening with a group of essays on American artists such as Robert Smithson, Alice Aycock, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman, the collection moves on to European art of the eighties, with particular reference to art in Britain and the legacy of conceptual art. From interviews with figures as diverse as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski, Stephen Campbell and Richard Prince, the essays proceed to younger artists: Steven Pippin, Rachel Whiteread, Miroslaw Balka and, in a previously unpublished text, Damien Hirst. The selection also includes the performance art of Anthony Howell, the cartoons of Glen Baxter, and the self-exposure of Robert Mapplethorpe, Jeff Koons and Madonna.

What the Butler Saw: Selected Writings

Arts & Photography

Morgan, Stuart

History & Criticism

Distributed Art Pub Inc

When Stuart Morgan died at age 54 in 2002, London's Guardian newspaper wrote, "Stuart Morgan became known during the 1980s in Europe and the United States as the most significant British writer on contemporary art. When he started writing in the 1970s, he knew that, in a country not receptive to contemporary art, the mediating role of criticism needed defending, and he brought to it refinement and audacity. His cadences moved through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Max Miller, Nathanael West and his beloved William Empson, often in the same essay. The liveliness he brought to his work endeared him to students and those artists whose inner lives he fathomed." This new collection of Morgan's sometimes-diaristic and always illuminating writings and exceptionally well-edited interviews covers artists ranging from Francis Bacon to Joseph Beuys, Pina Bausch, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Matthew Barney and Tracey Emin.

Inclinations: Further Writing and Interviews By Stuart Morgan

Frieze Publishing

"What is distinctive about [Coplan's] mind and the way it works is the ingenuity, curiosity, independence, range, and above all the sense of a pattern emerging without pressure...." —Stuart Morgan Provocations, a selection of John Coplans’ writings from 1963–1981, edited by art critic and curator Stuart Morgan, includes essays on Classic Modernism, Photography, and Pop Art, chapters from his now out-of-print books Kurt Schwitters (written with Walter Hopps) and Serial Imagery, and his controversial report on the decline of the Pasadena Art Museum.

Provocations

Coplans, John

powerHouse Books

Assembles the work of 11 international artists: Miroslaw Balka, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Hamad Butt, John Coplans, Pepe Espaliu, Robert Gober, Mona Hatoum, Susan Hiller, Jana Sterbak and Bill Viola. Works featured include video, sculpture, photography and site-specific installations.

Rites of Passage: Art for the End of the Century

Morris, Frances

Tate Gallery Pubn

With startlingly honest and surprisingly intimate images, noted photographer Nicholas Sinclair documents the work of Franko B, one of today's most provocative performance artists. Infused with a strong sense of outrage, the photographs depict practices cultivated at the margins of the cultural, political, and social framework of contemporary society. It is high-risk art that uses the artist's own blood as a primary tool of expression. The intensity of the work demands an emotional response from the audience, and that response to the images is as important as the images themselves. With specific references to religion, homelessness, and AIDS, Franko B is a serious work of uncommon urgency, reminding readers of the fragility of the human body and the strength of the human spirit. This volume is strengthened with insightful commentary by art critic Stuart Morgan and curator Lois Keidan.

Franko B

Keidan, Lois

Sinclair, Nicholas

Individual Artists

Black Dog Publishing

Artist Simon Lewty is known for his large scale and intensely detailed works where the layering of text and image serve to create a dream-like reality. Narrative is rarely followed through to conclusion, yet we are compelled to immerse ourselves in Lewty’s rich representation of body and landscape. Visually reminiscent of Ancient documents and comparable to maps, Lewty’s text-based works explore forgotten worlds of light and darkness, offering a reflective sense of history and exploring the inevitability of the passing of time. The writers whose words have been selected to accompany this comprehensive survey of Lewty’s work provide an in-depth study of the artist, shedding light on his key ideas and working method. The book opens with a foreword from Ian Hunt and features contributions from experts in a variety of disciplines, including Stuart Morgan, Paul Hills, Peter Larkin, Cathy Courtney and Susan Michie, as well as texts from Lewty himself, discussing memories from his childhood, through to more recent reflections on his life and art. Lewty's work has been exhibited widely and is included in collections at the Arts Council of Great Britain, Victoria and Albert Museum, to Miami Beach, USA, where he is represented in the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at Art First, The Self as a Stranger is the first comprehensive collection of this highly original artist's work from over the past 50 years, and examines the enduring importance of Simon Lewty’s contribution to contemporary fine art.

The Self as a Stranger: Simon Lewty

Hills, Paul

Larkin, Peter

Michie, Susan

Hunt, Ian

Courtney, Cathy

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