A critical study of the life of art criticism in the 1970s, this book traces the evolution of art and art criticism in a pivotal period in post-war British history. The book explores how art critics and the art press attempted to negotiate new developments in art, faced with the challenges of conceptualism, alternative media, new social movements and radical innovations in philosophy and theory. This is the first comprehensive study of the art press and art criticism in Britain during this pivotal period, seen through the lens of its art press, charting the arguments and ideas that would come to shape contemporary art as we know it today.

British visual artist Martin Westwood reviews his most notable projects to date, from his early drawings, in which he painstakingly reproduces images distorted through the process of photocopying, to his three exhibitions at The Approach, London; sequences of images allow the reader an overview of his two major installations, 'Angelus Novus' and 'fatfinger HAITCH . KAI . EKS .]', in which he recreated a school nursery and an office space, respectively, as a way of exploring issues around the environments we grow up and work in. An essay by writer and critic JJ Charlesworth provides a deeper understanding of the artist's work as a whole. Designed by Jason Beard, the book is an extensive and up-to-date visual summary of Westwood's oeuvre.
Martin Westwood's projects investigate the state of contemporary capitalist society, with a recurring focus on themes of bureaucracy, commerce, economy and corporate culture. Creating complex systems of codes and symbols that incorporate and reference familiar objects - such as balloons, magazines, map pins and invoice sheets, artificially decomposed and then reconstructed - his art works vary in scale and format from largescale installations to paintings and multilayered collages.