The sculptural history of the long 1980s has been dominated by New British Sculpture and Young British Artists. Arguing for a more expansive history of British sculpture and its supporting infrastructures, these twenty-three vivid and enthralling interviews with artists, curators, dealers and facilitators working then demonstrate the interconnected networks, diversity of ideas and practices, energy, imagination and determination that transformed British art from being marginal to internationally celebrated. With a substantial introduction, this timely volume provides valuable new insights into the education, work, careers, studios, infrastructures and exhibitions of the artists and facilitators, substantially enlarging our understanding of the era.

Artists have worked from home for many reasons, including care duties, financial or political constraints, or availability and proximity to others. From the 'home studios' of Charles and Ray Eames, to the different photographic representations of Robert Rauschenberg's studio, this book explores the home as a distinct site of artistic practice, and the traditions and developments of the home studio as concept and space throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Using examples from across Europe and the Anglophone world between the mid-20th century and the present, each chapter considers the different circumstances for working at home, the impact on the creative lives of the artists, their identities as artists and on the work itself, and how, sometimes, these were projected and promoted through photographs and the media. Key themes include the gendered and performative aspects of women practising 'at home', collaborative studio communities of the 1970s – 90s including the appropriation of abandoned spaces in East London, and the effects of Covid on artistic practices and family life within the spaces of 'home'. The book comprises full-length chapters by artists, architects, art and design historians, each of whom bring different perspectives to the issues, interwoven with short interviews with artists to enrich and broaden the debates. At a time when individual relationships to home environments have been radically altered, The Artist at Home considers why some artists in previous decades either needed to or chose to work from home, producing work of vitality and integrity. Tracing this long tradition into the present, the book will provide a deeper understanding of how the home studio has affected the practices and identity of artists working in different countries, and in different circumstances, from the mid-20th century to the present.

Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration investigates how three associated concepts-house, home and homeland-are represented in contemporary global art. The volume brings together essays which explore the conditions of global migration as a process that is always both about departures and homecomings, indeed, home-makings, through which the construction of migratory narratives are made possible. Although centrally concerned with how recent and contemporary works of art can materialize the migratory experience of movement and (re)settlement, the contributions to this book also explore how curating and exhibition practices, at both local and global levels, can extend and challenge conventional narratives of art, borders and belonging. A growing number of artists migrate; some for better job opportunities and for the experience of different cultures, others not by choice but as a consequence of forced displacement caused economic or environmental collapse, or by political, religious or military destabilization. In recent years, the theme of migration has emerged as a dominant subject in art and curatorial practices. Art, Borders and Belonging thus seeks to explore how the migratory experience is generated and displayed through the lens of contemporary art. In considering the extent to which the visual arts are intertwined with real life events, this text acts as a vehicle of knowledge transfer of cultural perspectives and enhances the importance of understanding artistic interventions in relation to home, migration and belonging.

: A richly illustrated collection of artworks, essays, and conversations that offer a range of perspectives on black art in Thatcherite Britain. The Place Is Here begins to write a missing chapter in British art history: work by black artists in the Thatcherite 1980s. Richly illustrated, with more than two hundred color images, it brings together artworks, essays, archives, and conversations that map the varying perspectives and approaches of a group of artists who challenged the dominance of white heterosexual men in the canon of contemporary art. The many artists discussed and displayed here do not make up a “movement” or a school or a chronological progression, but represent the diverse interests and activities of artists across a decade and beyond. They grapple with black nationalism, anti-colonialism and postcolonialism, anti-Thatcherism, black feminism, black queer subjectivity, psychoanalysis, forms of narrative and documentary image-making, in different ways and through different modes of representation across a range of media. The book, which grows out of a series of exhibitions that began in 2014, offers essays, close readings of selected works, panel discussions, and archival presentations, bringing together different voices and generational perspectives. Contributions come from the artists themselves, established scholars, and younger practitioners, critics, and art historians. They discuss the exhibitions, call for a reappraisal of dominant art historical approaches, and consider the use and role of the archive in artworks; look at works by Mona Hatoum, Martina Atille, Said Adrus, Chila Kumari Burman, and Pratibha Parmar; and present key documents and other material. Contributors Nick Aikens, Sonia Boyce, Laura Castagnini, Deborah Cherry, Alice Correia, Chandra Frank, June Givanni, Sunil Gupta, Evan Ifekoya, Claudette Johnson, Raisa Kabir, Gail Lewis, Amna Malik, Samia Malik, Priyesh Mistry, Dorothy Price, susan pui san lok, Raju Rage, Elizabeth Robles, Ashwani Sharma, Marlene Smith, Leon Wainwright, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Rehana Zaman

Andrew Graham-Dixon unveils the long-kept secret of Britain's rich and vital visual culture.