Jonathan Watkins

Ruya Foundation

Five Essays on Contemporary Art Selected by Jonathan Watkins

Art and Its Objects

His name is Roarke. His history is a swath of blood and violence. Released from prison after another man dies under his fists, he's found some semblance of peace as a private detective. Sometimes he's hired to solve a problem. Sometimes he's hired to do something mean. He prefers the one, but he's not above the other. When he's hired to locate a gorgeous banking executive's missing niece, Roarke suspects the case might be just another ugly custody fight between the girl's parents. A single gunshot aimed his way proves him wrong, and convinces him to give the missing girl his undivided attention. Soon, Roarke finds himself drawn away from his Detroit lair and into the northern wilderness where an armed militia calling themselves the Sons of Michigan are holding the girl. Lead by a silver-tongued preacher and a remorseless killer called the Last Watchman, the Sons are waiting for him. They think they can bargain with him. They think he can be reasoned with. They're wrong.

The Last Watchman Still Rides

Natasha Hoare

Rafal Niemojewski

Ben Borthwick

Coline Milliard

This book presents a snapshot of the most interesting curatorial practices in the art world today. There is an emphasis on the "now": the introduction sketches in the development of curatorial practices since the 1980s but the shows under scrutiny in the following 25 case studies have all taken place in the last few years. The selected exhibitions – chosen by an expert panel of curators – run the global gamut, from Europe and the US through Africa and the Middle East to China, and illustrate the particular challenges for curators working in both the commercial and public sectors. Large-scale shows and pop-up exhibits, permanent-collection rehangs and art fairs all have a place here. Each highly illustrated case study is structured around an interview with the curator responsible for the show. The text both tells the story of the show's making and fills in background information about the curator's work, resulting in an accessible guide to contemporary curating.

The New Curator

Maria Balshaw

Colm Tóibín

Mary Griffiths

Whitworth Art Gallery

One of Britain's most acclaimed contemporary artists, Cornelia Parker's work invites the viewer to witness the transformation of ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary.

Cornelia Parker

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Christy Lange

Iara Boubnova

Nedko Solakov

All in Order, with Exceptions

Robert Pfaller

Pavel Büchler - (Honest) Work

The devil you know… Darren Fletcher and Issabella Bright are finally getting some romantic alone time when a letter arrives from the Fletcher Group. Luther, Darren's brother and corrupt coheir to the ancient firm that Darren renounced years ago, has asked Darren to stop investigating the firm's shady business dealings. But a call from a friend in crisis means he has no time to brood about his past. …is in the details Theresa, the owner of Winkle's Tavern, and one of Darren's only friends, is the prime suspect in a murder that happened outside her bar. The victim is unknown to both Darren and Izzy, but the black key card in his wallet is familiar. Darren has one just like it; they're given to all associates of the Fletcher Group. Izzy knows that Darren won't stop until he's figured out exactly how Luther is involved in Theresa's arrest. But it's an older case, the one that derailed Darren's career and haunts him to this day, that ultimately threatens all they've worked so hard to build. When you bargain with the devil, you'd better win. Book Four of The Bright & Fletcher Mystery series.

A Devil's Bargain

Ikon Gallery

Museo d'arte contemporanea Donnaregina

Alice Cattaneo

Graham Gussin

'My art practice's current core aim is to try and create a better understanding of Muslims globally. It is in the realm of art that we can truly reflect on the nuances of life.' - Mahtab HussainThis book presents photographs by Mahtab Hussain taken in Kashmir during research for his residency on Ikon Gallery's Slow Boat in 2016.The project, entitled The Auspicious Journey, examined the construction of the Mangla Dam in the 1960s and the mass displacement it caused. Many of these people settled in the West Midlands to work on the canals, linking back to the artist's own heritage. This book also contains some documentation of the Mitti Ka Ghar exhibition at Ikon.A British-born artist heavily influenced by multiculturalism and cultural diversity, Mahtab Hussain uses photography to investigate the dynamic relationship between identity, heritage and displacement.He has been a recipient of numerous awards and commissions including Arts Council England, Multistory, and New Art Exchange. His work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, and reviewed in publications such as The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Huffington Post.

Going Back Home to where I Came from

Helen Legg

Elected Ikon Off-site Projects 2002-2004

From Audéoud to Zhao Bandi

Rick Poynor

Emily King

Tony Arefin

James Langdon (Graphic designer)

Tony Arefin (1962–2000), was a graphic designer who emerged during the late 1980s as one of the most important figures in the British art world.Comprising early publications from the YBA movement to seminal advertising campaigns for corporate clients such as IBM, Ikon's exhibition reveals the intuitive genius of Arefin's work.In 1993 Arefin left London for New York, becoming creative director of I.D. magazine, and immersed himself in magazine culture, art directing three other titles simultaneously: Bomb, Blind Spot and Art + Auction.Exploiting his intimate knowledge of the art world, he collaborated freely with photographers, illustrators and typeface designers to produce some of his most striking and dynamic work.Featuring an essay by Emily King, and including Tony Arefin in conversation with James Langdon, Rick Poynor and Jonathon Watkins.Published on the occasion of the exhibition Arefin & Arefin: The Graphic Design of Tony Arefin at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 12 September – 4 November 2012.

The Graphic Design of Tony Arefin

Arefin and Arefin

Val Williams

Matthew Hilton

Kieran Connell

Janet Mendelsohn

This book is re-printing and will be available in April 2016. This book accompanies the largest exhibition to date of photographs by American academic and documentary filmmaker Janet Mendelsohn.Part of a 'photo-essay' Mendelsohn made as a student at the U

Varna Road

Jessica Morgan

From the book's foreword: Focusing on Cornelia Parker's recent work with fireworks and meteorites. A combination of wonderful images and Jessica Morgan's intelligent text, it effectively conveys the vision of and extraordinary artist.

A Meteorite Lands ...

Max Klinger

Painting and Drawing

Ben Tufnell

Kyung An

Meekyoung Shin

Jade Keunhye Lim

London and Seoul-based Korean artist Meekyoung Shin (b.1967) is internationally renowned for her sculptures that probe the mis- and re-translations that often emerge when objects of distinct cultural and historical specificity are dislocated from their original context. Made from soap, her works replicate artifacts and canonical works of art, from Asian porcelain vases to Greek and Roman sculptures, translating between continents, cultures, and centuries in the process. Meekyoung Shin was born in South Korea and completed her BFA and MFA at Seoul National University. In 1995, she moved to London to obtain her MFA at the Slade School of Art, University College London, and has since held solo exhibitions internationally including at Haunch of Venison, London (2010) and the Korean Cultural Centre UK, London (2013). She has participated in numerous group shows including at the Museum of Art and Design, New York, and the 2013 Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan. Her works are found in collections all over the world, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Shin was nominated for the Korea Artist Prize 2013. In this new monograph on the artist, Jonathan Watkins sets the scene for Shin''s solo exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center UK in London in late autumn 2013, a stone''s throw from Nelson''s Column and the ''Fourth Plinth'' commission of Trafalgar Square. Context is essential to Shin''s practice, and indeed, to her identity. As she asserts: "I often identify myself as someone on the border between cultures". Watkins eloquently introduces Shin''s major bodies of work whilst capturing the cultural complexity, exquisite craftsmanship, conceptual elegance, and natural wit embodied within them.An essay by Ben Tufnell explores the cultural and historical references in Shin''s work over the past fifteen years. Taking Shin''s solo exhibition at Haunch of Venison in London in 2011 as his point of departure, he opens up questions of anthropology and museology, of what is exhibited where and when, by and for whom. His incisive analysis of Crouching Aphrodite (2002) - a life-size sculpture of the artist''s own body in the pose of the classical Venus of Vienne from the Louvre - raises issues of Eastern and Western culture, of originality and copying: "Being neither fully Asian nor fully Roman it inhabits a cultural limbo space." Tufnell explains, "Shin''s works are not simply replicas or reproductions but strange twins, uncanny avatars of their precursors."Curator and art historian Kyung An''s text offers an illuminating account of Shin''s Written in Soap: A Plinth Project (2012-ongoing), which takes the form of a remarkable public art project in which the artist recreates - out of soap - a large equestrian military statue of Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, that once stood in Cavendish Square, London. Having initiated a project that contributes to debates on public monument building, Shin then created subsequent versions of the sculpture for display in Seoul and Taipei. As An asks, "what becomes of the monument when it is transplanted to a national museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art five thousand miles away?"Jade Keunhye Lim''s essay unpicks the various strands of Shin''s Translation Series, from the classical Greek sculptures through to Toilet Project (2004-ongoing) - in which portrait busts made of soap are placed in the washrooms of galleries and museums for visitors to use when washing their hands - and Weathering Project (2009-ongoing), in which Shin locates her soap sculptures outdoors for them to be slowly eroded by the elements. Via cultural imperialism and the tastes of the affluent classes of the West, Keunhye Lim questions the value systems of objects and the logic of their accession into museums - questions that underpin Shin''s practice. How is beauty, cultural significance, and financial value constructed, and how does this translate across cultures and time? This monograph, beautifully illustrated with over fifty color and black and white images, was published by Anomie Publishing in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Centre UK, London, on the occasion of ''Unfixed: A solo exhibition by Meekyoung Shin'', held at the KCC from 12 November 2013 to 18 January 2014, curated by Jonathan Watkins.

Rachel Carpenter

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