John Stezaker: Tabula Rasa

Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London in his early teens, he graduated with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1973. In the early 1970s, he was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art. Solo exhibitions for Stezaker were rare for some time, however, in the mid-2000s, his work was rediscovered by the art market; he is now collected by several international collectors and museums. Made across a 32-year span, the works in Tabula Rasa unite the central themes in the art of celebrated British artist John Stezaker, from the capacities of collage to the current flow in an age of mass media. This volume brings silkscreens on canvas from the early 1990s and film still collages from the 1990s and 2009 together for the first time. An essay by art critic and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell looks at the connections within Stezaker's practice, centering on notions of screens, voids and cut-outs. AUTHOR: Writer, novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell was born in London in 1958. Educated at the University of Nottingham, he has worked for the British Council in London. His first novel, The Crypto-Amnesia Club, was published in 1988. It was followed by Divine Concepts of Physical Beauty (1989), The Conclave (1992) and Saint Rachel (1995). His most recent novel, Perfect Tense (2001), explores the minutiae of office life. His non-fiction includes a cultural history of England, England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion From Wilde to Goldie (1997) and his writing is included in The Faber Book of Pop (1995) and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Fashion Writing (1999). He writes about contemporary art for Frieze and has also written exhibition catalogues for contemporary artists including Sam Taylor-Wood, Ian Davenport and Gilbert & George. He has written and presented two documentaries for BBC television, a profile of Oscar Wilde and a film about architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner's guide to Surrey. Michael Bracewell has written a non-fiction portrait of the last decade of the 20th century, entitled The Nineties: When Surface was Depth in 2002, and several books about Roxy Music, the latest being Roxy: The Band That Invented an Era (2008). SELLING POINTS: . Stezaker was among the first wave of British conceptual artists to react against what was then the predominance of Pop art . Made across a 32-year span, the works in Tabula Rasa unite the central themes in the art of celebrated British artist John Stezaker, from the capacities of collage to the current flow in an age of mass media. 17 colour illustrations

About the Author :
Writer, novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell was born in London in 1958. Educated at the University of Nottingham, he has worked for the British Council in London. His first novel, The Crypto-Amnesia Club, was published in 1988. It was followed by Divine Concepts of Physical Beauty (1989), The Conclave (1992) and Saint Rachel (1995). His most recent novel, Perfect Tense (2001), explores the minutiae of office life. His non-fiction includes a cultural history of England, England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion From Wilde to Goldie (1997) and his writing is included in The Faber Book of Pop (1995) and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Fashion Writing (1999). He writes about contemporary art for Frieze and has also written exhibition catalogues for contemporary artists including Sam Taylor-Wood, Ian Davenport and Gilbert & George. He has written and presented two documentaries for BBC television, a profile of Oscar Wilde and a film about architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner's guide to Surrey. Michael Bracewell has written a non-fiction portrait of the last decade of the 20th century, entitled The Nineties: When Surface was Depth in 2002, and several books about Roxy Music, the latest being Roxy: The Band That Invented an Era (2008).