'Mr Roscoe's Garden is a key outcome of The Fragrant Liverpool project. Conceived by Jyll Bradley, this is a unique international art project exploring the stories, rites and exchanges that occur when a flower is cut and placed in the human hand. The project centres on the fascinating story of the Liverpool's Botanic Collection and the people involved in its intriguing history. Established by William Roscoe in 1802, and moved to more extensive sites in both 1846 when it became a public facility and in 1964, the complete Botanic Collection has not been on display since 1984 when it closed to the public in a political storm that mirrored the cataclysmic 1980s decline of Liverpool itself. The collection thus has both a glorious and tragic past. Jyll Bradley draws together the compelling tales of the Botanic Collection's history in this creatively ambitious and beautifully illustrated book, evoking the people that made the collection and the distant lands that supplied the plants. By the early nineteenth century the Liverpool Botanic Collection was one of the greatest botanic gardens of its day, filled with strange and rare plants arriving on ships through the City's port from an ever-widening imperial world. By the mid-twentieth the Collection included the greatest orchid collection ever amassed in municipal Britain, as it still does today. While the indignity of the closure lives on, so do, by miracle, the living plants and the dried plants (in Liverpool's magnificent Herbarium); the books; the paintings and all the other riches that have, at one time, or another, co-existed in the Liverpool Botanic Gardens. The glory days are still in the past, but the plant collections have continued to be nurtured and grown and Liverpool's current revival has signalled a new future for the Collection. Painstakingly designed by Jyll Bradley, Mr Roscoe's Garden is a work of art in itself. Its publication also coincides with the re-emergence of the collection as goes to the Chelsea Flower Show for the first time in 30 years and the Gardens open once again to the public.

LAND ART IN THE U.K.

A new book on land art in Great Britain. There are chapters on land artists such as Chris Drury, Hamish Fulton, David Nash, Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy. All of the major practitioners of land and environmental art in the U.K. are discussed.

EXTRACT FROM THW CHAPTER ON ANDY GOLDSWORTHY

One wonders whether Andy Goldsworthy would like to work in snow and ice more than in any other medium. In temperate snowlands one feels Goldsworthy is very much at home. Snow has all the right sorts of qualities Goldsworthy looks for in a material: it is malleable, it melts and changes, its whiteness makes for good, contrasty imagery photographically, and it seasonally alters the landscape, and later dissolves into it.

In Goldsworthy s snowworks one senses also the sheer fun working with snow. For people in most of Britain, snow is not a occurrence each year, as it is in, say, Northern Russia or Alaska. Snow can be an exciting event (but British adults usually gripe it). Snow was a perennial delight and shock for Goldsworthy. In Midsummer Snowballs he wrote that e]ven in winter each snowfall is a shock, unpredictable and unexpected.

Goldsworthy retained the child-like enjoyment of snow falling in Britain throughout his life. While much of the U.K. grinds to a halt at the sight of a snowflake, Goldsworthy has the child s joy when it snows (school s cancelled, snowball fights, ice skating, sledging, and making snowmen and snowballs).

Andy Goldsworthy speaks in wonder and awe of the effect, the excitement of the first snowfall. Some of this excitement comes across in Goldsworthy s snowworks. He has made, for example, patterns in the snow by rolling a snowball around a field, exactly as kids do when it snows (1982 and 1987).

Some of Goldsworthy s earliest works with snow were large snowballs. In some of these early snow pieces, Goldsworthy placed snowballs in areas such as woods and fields which didn t have any snow, so the snowballs stood out in the trees and grass (as in Ilkley, Yorkshire, 1981).

Site-specific installations are created for specific locations and are usually intended as temporary artworks. The Perpetuation of Site-Specific Installation Artworks in Museums: Staging Contemporary Art shows that these artworks consist of more than a singular manifestation and that their lifespan is often extended. In this book, Tatja Scholte offers an in-depth account of the artistic production of the last forty years. With a wealth of case studies the author illuminates the diversity of site-specific art in both form and content, as well as in the conservation strategies applied. A conceptual framework is provided for scholars and museum professionals to better understand how site-specific installations gain new meanings during successive stages of their biographies and may become agents for change in professional routines.

Against Ambience diagnoses - in order to cure - the art world's recent turn toward ambience. Over the course of three short months - June to September, 2013 - the four most prestigious museums in New York indulged the ambience of sound and light: James Turrell at the Guggenheim, Soundings at MoMA, Robert Irwin at the Whitney, and Janet Cardiff at the Met. In addition, two notable shows at smaller galleries indicate that this is not simply a major-donor movement. Collectively, these shows constitute a proposal about what we wanted from art in 2013. While we're in the soft embrace of light, the NSA and Facebook are still collecting our data, the money in our bank accounts is still being used to fund who-knows-what without our knowledge or consent, the government we elected is still imprisoning and targeting people with whom we have no beef. We deserve an art that is the equal of our information age. Not one that parrots the age's self-assertions or modes of dissemination, but an art that is hyper-aware, vigilant, active, engaged, and informed. We are now one hundred years clear of Duchamp's first readymades. So why should we find ourselves so thoroughly in thrall to ambience? Against Ambience argues for an art that acknowledges its own methods and intentions; its own position in the structures of cultural power and persuasion. Rather than the warm glow of light or the soothing wash of sound, Against Ambience proposes an art that cracks the surface of our prevailing patterns of encounter, initiating productive disruptions and deconstructions.

'Performing Contagious Bodies' explores live/body art and installation practices through theories of ritual and magic. Featuring discussion of a wide range of contemporary international practice, the book explores the intersections of performance studies, art history, anthropology and contemporary visual art practices.

Installation art has become mainstream in artistic practices. However, acquiring and displaying such artworks implies that curators and conservators are challenged to deal with obsolete technologies, ephemeral materials and other issues concerning care and management of these artworks. By analysing three in-depth case studies, the author sheds new light on the key concepts of traditional conservation (authenticity, artist's intention, and the notion of ownership) while exploring how these concepts apply in contemporary art conservation. Based on original empirical research and cross-case analysis, this ground-breaking study offers a re-examination of traditional conservation values and ethics, and argues for a reassessment of the role of the conservator of contemporary art.

There is no soundtrack is a study of how sound and image produce meaning in contemporary experimental media art by artists ranging from Chantal Akerman to Nam June Paik to Tanya Tagaq. It contextualises these works and artists through key ideas in sound studies: voice, noise, listening, the soundscape and more. The book argues that experimental media art produces radical and new audio-visual relationships challenging the visually dominated discourses in art, media and the human sciences. In addition to directly addressing what Jonathan Sterne calls 'visual hegemony', it also explores the lack of diversity within sound studies by focusing on practitioners from transnational and diverse backgrounds. As such, it contributes to a growing interdisciplinary scholarship, building new, more complex and reverberating frameworks to collectively sonify the study of culture. -- .

This book is a retrospective volume on Latin American new media arts, arising from the Cities in Dialogue exhibition that was held in in FACT in conjunction with the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool Independents Biennial in 2014. There is also plenty of detail about the other events that were held during 2014 and into 2015, including workshops, artist talks, Twitter galleries and the Artist in Residence and his activities. One chapter is dedicated to each artist and the works they presented at the exhibition: Brian Mackern from Uruguay, Barbara Palomino from Chile, Marina Zerbarini from Argentina, and Ricardo Miranda Zuniga from the US. There is also an extensive chapter about the exciting new residence artwork created by Artist in Residence Brian Mackern. Entitled This Too Shall Pass// Affective Cartographies, this work is based on footage obtained through a series of unplanned journeys along Liverpool's urbanscape. The gathering of information and recording of sound and visual material during these journeys is then remixed in this artwork by different parameters (volume levels, transparencies, zooms, fragmentations, crossfadings, speeds of timelines, etc.) controlled by Liverpool's "socio economic historic curve" of the last century. In this book you can find out about all of these works, and other pieces by these artists. The book includes full colour images throughout, including exclusive images of works in progress, as well as excerpts of interviews with the artists. At the back of the book you can find links to online resources, including the art works themselves, audio interviews with the artists, image galleries, and more.

Taking place examines feminist and queer alternative art spaces across Canada and the United States from the late-1960s to the present. It looks at how queer and feminist artists working in the present day engage with, respond to and challenge the institutions they have inherited. Through a series of regional case studies, the book interrogates different understandings of 'alternative' space and the possibilities the term affords for queer and feminist artistic imaginaries. -- .

This unique reflection on the world of Robert Burns places a range of photographic artworks by celebrated Scottish artist Calum Colvin alongside poems written in response to each work by 'weel-kent' Scots poet Rab Wilson. Colvin's multi-referential artworks are concerned with the very process of looking, perceiving and interpreting. The potential meaning of any individual piece is intrinsically linked to the viewer’s personal deconstruction of the image. Utilising the unique fixed-point perspective of the camera, Colvin creates and records manipulated and constructed images in order to create elaborate narratives which meditate on numerous aspects of Scottish culture, identity and the human condition in the early 21st century. At times witty, controversial and tender, the images are presented alongside poems in response by Rab Wilson which equally reflect on the life and aspects of Burns to dwell on who we are, and where we have been, toward what we may become. As Burns reflected through his art the world he inhabited, these works and words strive to reflect on a myriad of contemporary concerns.

A comprehensive look at Louise Nevelson's career as a pioneering sculptor Louise Nevelson (1900-1988) was a towering figure in postwar American art, exerting great influence with her monumental installations, innovative sculptures made of found objects, and celebrated public artworks. The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson focuses on all phases of the artist's remarkable ascent to the top of the art world, from her groundbreaking works of the 1940s to complex pieces completed in the late 1980s. The most extensive study of Nevelson to be published in over 20 years, this beautifully illustrated book also demonstrates how Nevelson's flamboyant style and carefully cultivated persona enhanced her reputation as an artist of the first rank. Essays by distinguished scholars examine a wide variety of important issues and themes throughout Nevelson's career, including the role of monochromatic color in her painted wooden sculpture; the art-historical context of her work; her acclaimed large-scale commissioned artworks, which established her as a central figure in the public art revival of the late 1960s; and her "self-fashioning" as a celebrated artist, particularly her origins as a Ukrainian-born Jewish immigrant to the United States. An illustrated chronology and exhibition history accompany the text. Published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of Nevelson's work in America since 1980, this book provides essential information on and insights into the study of a revolutionary 20th-century artist.

Originally a film by British avant-garde filmmaker Nichola Bruce, The Romance of Bricks is a portrait of the artist Liz Finch: a British painter, performer and poet. From her life-changing accident and rural solitude to the mad social whirl of 80s London anarchic performances and up to the present day, The Romance of Bricks sews together archival film over many years to produce an intriguing glimpse into the private world of the artist. Featuring commentary from Jools Holland, Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie, John Finch, Brian Clarke, Aubrey Fabing, Richard Strange, Nicola Bateman Bowery, Francesco Brusatin and Martin Harrison alongside an intimate dialogue with the artist herself.

A leading female sculptor and figure in Chinese contemporary art, Yin Xiuzhen (b. 1963, Beijing, China) began her career in the early 1990s following her graduation from Capital Normal University in Beijing where she received a B.A. from the Fine Arts Department in 1989. Best known for her works that incorporate second-hand objects, Yin uses her artwork to explore modern issues of globalization and homogenization. By utilizing recycled materials such as sculptural documents of memory, she seeks to personalize objects and allude to the lives of specific individuals, which are often neglected in the drive toward excessive urbanization, rapid modern development and the growing global economy. The artist explains, "In a rapidly changing China, 'memory' seems to vanish more quickly than everything else. That's why preserving memory has become an alternative way of life."

The ultimate illustrated guide to the sculpture parks and trails of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. This exciting guide to the sculpture parks, trails and gardens of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales is the perfect book for those who like art and the outdoors. Divided up into countries and regions, the book is informative as well as beautifully illustrated with fabulous images of sculptures by a broad array of international artists. It provides information on all the major sculpture venues of interest, featuring the best and most established, while also providing a wide range of other interesting places to visit and explore. Each feature provides directions of how to get there, along with an overview of the park or trail, and lists sculptures of particular interest and quality, while maps of each area will help you find places close by to visit. This makes it easy to see which places are suited to you depending on your preferences, level of interest and time available. This fully revised 2nd edition provides updated information and new entries for England, as well as brand new sections providing thorough coverage of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The ideal guide for those with a passion for both nature and sculptures.

In this in-depth analysis, Peter Muir argues that Gordon Matta-Clark's Conical Intersect (1975) is emblematic of Henri Lefebvre's understanding of art's function in relation to urban space. By engaging with Lefebvre's theory in conjunction with the perspectives of other writers, such as Michel de Certeau, Jacques Derrida, and George Bataille, the book elicits a story that presents the artwork's significance, origins and legacies. Conical Intersect is a multi-media artwork, which involves the intersections of architecture, sculpture, film, and photography, as well as being a three-dimensional model that reflects aspects of urban, art, and architectural theory, along with a number of cultural and historiographic discourses which are still present and active. This book navigates these many complex narratives by using the central 'hole' of Conical Intersect as its focal point: this apparently vacuous circle around which the events, documents, and other historical or theoretical references surrounding Matta-Clark's project, are perpetually in circulation. Thus, Conical Intersect is imagined as an insatiable absence around which discourses continually form, dissipate and resolve. Muir argues that Conical Intersect is much more than an 'artistic hole.' Due to its location at Plateau Beaubourg in Paris, it is simultaneously an object of art and an instrument of social critique.

This book is about the digital interface and its use in interactive new media art installations. It examines the aesthetic aspects of the interface through a theoretical exploration of new media artists, who create, and tactically deploy, digital interfaces in their work in order to question the socio-cultural stakes of a technology that shapes and reshapes relationships between humans and non-humans. In this way, it shows how use of the digital interface provides us with a critical framework for understanding our relationship with technology.

This publication offers a rich and expansive visual record of Julie Brook's artistic practice, and proposes a unique collaboration between Brook and distinct voices from the nature writing and craftsmanship traditions. Situating Brook's practice in the context of critical reflections by Robert Macfarlane, Alexandra Harris and Raku Jikinyu, the publication presents a striking visual narrative of Brook's landscape and tidal sculptural work, and a sense of its timeless yet contemporary resonance. Documenting in depth a number of recent works made in the Hebrides, Japan and Namibia, their shared attention to the elements and their key pre-occupations of the fleeting, mobile forces of light, time, and gravity demonstrate Brook's coherent vision within vastly contrasting environments. Throughout her oeuvre, the balance between what Brook makes in relation to the environment and materials themselves is paramount. Including film stills, photography and drawing, which are all integral languages for conceptualising and communicating the work, plus insightful extracts from Brook's notebooks, this beautiful publication succeeds in providing the reader with a unique understanding of the artist's 'monuments to the moment'.