Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This book is the documentation to the most important exhibition on recent British sculpture since a seminal show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1981. Charles Harrison's introductory essay is a concise survey of mid-century trends and influential artists. An essay by Lynne Cooke shifts the focus to six featured ``masters'': Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Barry Flanagan, Richard Long, David Nash, and Bill Woodrow. Each artist is treated to his own essay, with bibliographic notes and plentiful illustrations. A useful artist chronology concludes the work. The plates are not all as evocative as they could be, but together they give a real sense of the subject matter. The book fills a need in the literature of contemporary British art. Paula A. Baxter, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

An outgrowth of an exhibition, ``British Sculptors Since 1965'' (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), this book is the first to treat comprehensively this important British period. An excellent essay by critic Charles Harrison describes the influence of Adams, Armitage, Butler, Chadwick, and Meadows. An equally fine essay by art commentator Lynne Cooke explains the paths taken by the artists represented-Cragg, Deacon, Long, Flanagan, Nash, and Woodrow. There are separate essays on each sculptor by Jane Jacob, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Graham Beal, chief curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A checklist of the exhibition and artists' biographies close the book. The materials are organized in a structural way. The 120 black-and-white photographs are slightly below average in quality, but the 21 color plates are excellent. College, university, and public libraries.-J. Risley, Wesleyan University

Booklist Review

A powerful argument that Britain hosts the liveliest new sculpture anywhere, this companion to an exhibition now in Chicago and traveling to San Francisco, Newport Beach (California), Washington, D.C., and Buffalo presents the work of six artists. All that superficially unites them is that they are not abstractionists, but they also share a common ethos, one of social and ecological consciousness suggested by means of satirical, ironic, surrealistic, and spiritual references to the everyday world. Most of them also characteristically use found natural and manufactured objects in their work. Tony Cragg, for example, makes images composed of discarded tools, toys, and other plastic and metal detritus, while Richard Long orders stones and mud into circles and lines. Each of the six is accorded an exegetical essay, and two more essays place the group in the context of postwar British sculpture. Appended: exhibition checklist, artists' biographies. RO. 730'.942 Sculpture, British Exhibitions / Sculpture, Modern 20th century Great Britain Exhibitions [OCLC] 86-16325 [el7]