The novelist, writer, curator and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell has written extensively for museums and galleries, along with art publications as diverse as Frieze and The Burlington Magazine, approaching visual art through its cultural context, the lens of the recent past and prolonged looking. Bracewell’s art writing focuses on detailed descriptions of works of art, expanding their interpretation to include media, politics, music, poetry and other areas of cultural production. By exploring connections between the visual arts, pop music, modern iconography and subcultures, while appraising the vision and ideas of individual artists, he relates their work to its broader cultural context. This collection of texts reads like a history of British art (and the UK itself) from the 1950s to the 2010s, featuring artists such as Richard Hamilton, Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George, John Stezaker, Wolfgang Tillmans, Leigh Bowery, Glenn Brown and Damien Hirst. Each essay is accompanied by an illustration selected by Bracewell, and the publication concludes with a body of autobiographical writings. AUTHOR: Michael Bracewell is a novelist and cultural historian who has written widely about art, visual culture, music and literature. His evocative memoir Souvenir, portraying 1970s and 1980s London, was published in 2021. Formerly the Publisher at Ridinghouse, Doro Globus is Managing Director at David Zwirner Books and is the author of ‘Making a Great Exhibition’, a book for children. SELLING POINTS: . Michael Bracewell is a polymathic and celebrated cultural commentator. He is a novelist, writer (visual arts, music, literature) and curator who has written widely on art for museums, galleries, art publications and general media titles . He has a deep knowledge of British counterculture and his writing situates art firmly within its cultural and political milieu . His art criticism combines detailed description with an expanded range of references from music to poetry to mass media . Each text is accompanied by an illustration selected by the author . Also includes a number of autobiographical writings, a less well known aspect of Bracewell’s work 40 colour illustrations
