Art. Art Criticism. This monograph traces Sonia Boyce's trajectory from early graphic work to her recent mixed-media pieces which draw on elements of British popular culture and cinema to address society's positioning of individuals in terms of race, class and gender. Unquestionably serious and with an unquestionable sense of humor, Boyce's work, ranging from photography to painting and installations, is here widely represented, and well-complemented by three intelligent essays by Gilane Tawadros, a biography of the artist, and, alongside the essays, excellently chosen excerpts from Boyce's working diaries. Tawadros' essays address cultural, racial, gender and visual/art historical issues raised over the trajectory of Boyce's artistic development, using such theorists as Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Italo Calvino, and Stuart Hall to contextualize the artist's magnificent and provocative work.

Published to accompany an exhibition at MK Gallery, this is the first major survey of the work of contemporary British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard, nominated for the Turner Prize 2022. This publication provides the first overview of works by British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard. Pollard is renowned for using portrait and landscape photography to question our relationship with the natural world and to interrogate social constructs such as Britishness, race, sexuality and identity. Working across a variety of techniques from photography, printmaking, drawing and installation to artists' books, video and audio, Pollard combines meticulous research and experimental processes to make art that is at once deeply personal and socially resonant. 'Ingrid Pollard's practice has long been focused on the human body, astro-physics and geology, and in particular geology in the formation of the stars and planets. The title of this publication - Carbon Slowly Turning - invites us to reflect on geological time in relation to human time. On the one hand, the millennia in which carbon, rock and other natural materials are made, and on the other, the brevity of human existence by comparison and the affecting nature of geology on the human form. A number of Pollard's works reflect on the cyclical nature of history and human experience, where everything is subject to change, sometimes over hundreds or thousands of years, at other times in the blink of an eye.' - Gilane Tawadros, Curator, writer and CEO, DACS 'Ingrid Pollard's work slows down our looking to create space to consider alternative formations of history and landscape. Across four decades she has re-scripted Britishness, looking back in order that we might move forward differently. This is a profound and timely exploration of this vital British artist.' - Maria Balshaw, Director, Tate This book accompanies an exhibition at MK Gallery and Turner Contemporary, curated by Gilane Tawadros, with the artist, and supported by the Freelands Award 2020. Edited by Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira. Essays by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Cheryl Finley, Paul Gilroy, Mason Leaver-Yap and Gilane Tawadros.

Built upon the politics of difference, The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon examines artistic practice through an international lens. This vibrant collection of essays and writings – produced in different cultural contexts and collected over two decades – introduces the reader to the thought, method of analysis and everyday experiences that have emerged from an increasingly globalized world, presenting a potentially radical frame through which to understand contemporary art. Gilane Tawadros experiments with methodology to draw cultural difference to the surface: from traditional criticism to fictional narratives, this critical variety mirrors her embrace of different perspectives and hints to the myriad ways in which contemporary art is created and presented. Using these techniques she explores the work of leading artists such as Adel Abdessemed, Richard Avedon, Sonia Boyce and Frank Bowling, offering expert guidance on the rich cultural and historical contexts of global and contemporary art through intimate engagement with lived experience. Playing with forms of writing, from critical analyses to fictional narratives, The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon functions as a practice-based meditation on how to write about contemporary art.