Hettie Judah knows one or two things about the London art world: she writes about it fulltime for top publications (The Guardian, The I, The New York Times). Her judgments are never shrill, and her judgments are carefully calibrated. So it’s great to see her bring out a guide on visual arts in the British capital.
As Hettie notes in her introduction, London was, for a long time, an art backwater. “Had this book been written forty years earlier, it would have been a far slimmer volume," she writes. Today, there's art to be found everywhere: from the "scrappy student pop-ups" full of young work to the hallowed halls of the Royal Academy.
The book is organised according to London's different areas -- the posh ones and the not so posh ones. You'll find entries on every area's museums, commercial galleries, public art works, and other fixtures. There are also sidebars on historic figures (such as the legendary dealer Robert Fraser, also known as 'Groovy Bob') and on living artists who are residents of that area.
Of Tracey Emin, profiled briefly in the section on Shoreditch, she writes: "Never shy of the spotlight, her work mines harrowing biographical details that at times made it hard to judge where the woman ends and the work began...Her territory is that of messy emotion and the inconvenient, unpoetic responses to real life."
"Art London" is a juicy mine of information even for those of us who have been covering the art world for forever and a day. Recommended!
As Hettie notes in her introduction, London was, for a long time, an art backwater. “Had this book been written forty years earlier, it would have been a far slimmer volume," she writes. Today, there's art to be found everywhere: from the "scrappy student pop-ups" full of young work to the hallowed halls of the Royal Academy.
The book is organised according to London's different areas -- the posh ones and the not so posh ones. You'll find entries on every area's museums, commercial galleries, public art works, and other fixtures. There are also sidebars on historic figures (such as the legendary dealer Robert Fraser, also known as 'Groovy Bob') and on living artists who are residents of that area.
Of Tracey Emin, profiled briefly in the section on Shoreditch, she writes: "Never shy of the spotlight, her work mines harrowing biographical details that at times made it hard to judge where the woman ends and the work began...Her territory is that of messy emotion and the inconvenient, unpoetic responses to real life."
"Art London" is a juicy mine of information even for those of us who have been covering the art world for forever and a day. Recommended!
