Dimensions
250 x 290 x 18mm
Part of the Contemporary Artists series.
Winner of the 1997 Turner Prize, London-based British artist Gillian Wearing uses photography and video to explore the intimacies and complexities of everyday life. Her work borrows from familiar forms of popular culture to explore deep-seated human trauma and emotion, often adopting methods similar to television documentary for her "fly-on-the-wall" view of people's lives.
In 1992 she began the noted, ongoing photographic series 'Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say And Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say', in which random passers-by were photographed holding messages of their own choosing, such as the mild-mannered young businessman whose sign rather surprisingly reads "I'm Desperate".
Her art can be disturbing and confessional, an honest portrait of the many sides of contemporary life. With exhibitions in the US, Europe, Japan and Britain, Wearing is among the most internationally recognised of the recent generation of British artists. Her work has been included in all the major surveys of the 1990s Young British Art phenomenon, from 'Brilliant' (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1995) to 'Sensation' (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1997) to 'life/live' (ARC Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1996). This is the first publication to survey all of this remarkable artist's work.
Ferguson contextualizes Wearing's work in relation to historical precedents in painting, photography and video art. De Salvo discusses with the artist her collaborative approach towards her work and its subjects. Slyce focuses on Wearing's work '10-16', a remarkable video installation that charts our transition from childhood to adolescence. Also published here for the first time in full are the transcripts of Wearing's video works.
'Contemporary Artists' is a series of authoritative and highly illustrated studies of important artists of the late 20th century. Each title offers a comprehensive survey of individual artists' works. Different genres of art writing are contributed by an international spectrum of authors who are leading figures in their fields, ranging from art history and criticism to philosophy, cultural theory and fiction. Each study provides incisive analyses and multiple perspectives on contemporary art and its inspiration. These are essential source books for everyone concerned with art today.
