Can't Breathe Without You

Arts & Photography

Howard, Rachel

Individual Artists

Other Criteria

Fresh Fresher is a monograph on the work of British artist Jane Simpson. It is a celebration of her career since 1992 when, while still a student, she first experimented with the use of ice and her now trademark refrigeration technique. Rather than following a strict chronology, the book surveys Simpson's work thematically, punctuated by three critical texts. An introduction by Norman Rosenthal and essays by Ulrike Groos, Director, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Mark Godfrey, Slade School of Art, place the artist's work in a broader art historical context. By positioning the pieces in abstract perspectives of vivid colour, the book's design accentuates the pastel tones and shades that, as in her rubber casts of kitchen utensils or photographs of Tupperware, Simpson characteristically uses in her work. Fresh Fresher takes its title from Simpson's sculpture of a pair of vases with roses in different stages of bloom, a work she based on two of Giorgio Morandi's paintings. A variation on the classical tradition of still life, this piece (2000) exemplifies the underlying themes invariably present in the artist's work to date: the process of appropriation and transformation, and the dialectics of decay and renewal.

Jane Simpson: Fresh Fresher

Following Damien Hirst's Biennale Grand Prize, which he was awarded in 2001 for The Last Supper prints, Ljubljana International Biennale of Graphic Arts invited the artist to produce an entirely new show for their 25th Biennale in 2003. In response, Hirst exhibited his first ever exhibition of drawings which, spanning his career, consisted of approximately 100 pieces. Many were sourced from private and public collections and displayed the studious, preliminary and imaginative workings of the artist. A number of drawings dated form his early teenagehood, others were lent by close friends, who had been given personal drawings by the artist. Included in the exhibition were a number of preparatory sketches for later and larger works including paintings and sculptures. This publication reproduces over 300 drawings and is a fascinating and diverse insight into the artist's working mind and methods, it manages to convey his humour and integrity in the making process. In the words of Hugh Allan, "these drawings should be seen as the spirits or shadows of more robust 'living' things … Urgent to render and explanation, Hirst has the energy of a dying man desperate to tell us a truth; as the title of the show suggests, cradle and grave bracket what lies between."

From the Cradle to the Grave: Selected Drawings

HIRST, Damien

Not so much poems, more titles gone mad. The Cancer Chronicles is a collection of thirteen poems by the artist Damien Hirst. Hirst wrote the book to accompany his work Romance in the Age of Uncertainty - Jesus & His Disciples (Death, Martyrdom, Suicide & Ascension), (not illustrated). Each poem shares a title with the installed elements of the piece, which include thirteen steel and glass cabinets each alluding to the life and death of the Apostles.In his first published book of writing Hirst explores in written form some of the motifs that have endured in his work: death, decay, disease and belief. The poems provide further insight into Hirst's sculptural works, but please do not read this publication whilst listening to the music.

Damien Hirst: The Cancer Chronicles

Private Collection is a unique and fascinating publication of over 250 pornographic photographs from Danny Moynihan's personal collection, including images made by some of the earliest erotic photographers, right up to the 1940s. This publication visually documents attitudes about sex and pornography, and by so doing shows how they were developed alongside a 'correct' social and cultural behavioural code of restraint, particularly with regard to sexual intercourse and role-play. By providing a historical overview of nudity and sex in photography, the book offers an intriguing insight into the way pornography was made alongside the development of photography. Private Collection includes an extremely readable and informative essay by Cressida Connolly which discusses pornography from an historical perspective, the way the sex industry was used in the 19th century, and how this affected the production, function and availability of pornography: "There were no rules. It is the revolutionary newness of these images which makes them as exciting as their subjects."

Private Collection: A History of Erotic Photography, 1850–1940

Photography & Video

This book is a creative guide to the making of arguably the most extraordinary art object to be made in the 21st century. Published to accompany the 2007 exhibition "Damien Hirst: Beyond Belief" at White Cube, it gives a fascinating pictorial insight into how Hirst's diamond skull piece "For the Love of God" was conceived and produced.Illustrated with candid behind-the-scenes photographs by Johnnie Shand Kydd, the book includes a number of preparatory drawings by Damien Hirst and a fold-out image of the diamond skull.Accompanying this is an essay by the art historian Rudi Fuchs, who writes, "The skull is out of this world, celestial almost. I tend to see it as a glorious intense victory over death." A number of leading experts in the fields of archeology and dentistry have also contributed detailed studies on the diamond skull, including analyses of its age and ancestry.

For The Love Of God: The (signed edition): Making Of The Diamond Skull

This comprehensive monograph was produced to accompany the drawings retrospective ‘Damien Hirst: Corpus: Drawings 1981-2006’ held at Gagosian Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York in 2006. It features more than two hundred drawings which offer a historical insight into rarely seen aspects of the artist’s work and process. Included are early drawings from Hirst’s student days; pencil sketches for seminal sculptures such as ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ 1991, ‘A Thousand Years’ 1991, ‘The Acquired Inability to Escape’ 1992, ‘Away from the Flock’ 1994 and ‘The Hat Makes the Man’ 2003; preparatory diagrams for early spot paintings and medicine cabinets; a large-scale series of fourteen drawings for The Stations of the Cross (2004); and proposals for unrealised and future projects. Accompanying the drawings is a conversation between the artist and political philosopher John Gray (author of Straw Dogs, False Dawn and Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern), and an essay by British historian Simon Baker. Hardback/with 29 gatefolds and book ribbon

Corpus: Drawings 1981-2006 (Signed Edition)

This limited edition artist’s book features reproductions of Rachel Howard’s pure abstract canvases and figurative works. The abstract works elicit an immediate visceral emotional response, whilst the more figurative pieces make a play for the mind. By layering and interweaving these elements to create a whole, Howard pulls together the corporeal and the cerebral. Exploring our ever present need to make sense of our existence Can’t Breathe Without You is a search for answers and a search for reassurance in the absence of answers, be it through religion of the mundane. It includes reproductions of the sin painting series from the exhibition Guilty at the Bohen Foundation New York (2003/4) and a short introductory text by the artist entitled So Who Made God? There is also a longer essay by Deborah Orr, award-winning columnist for The Independent newspaper.

Can't Breathe Without You (Signed Edition)

Bunny documents a project by the internationally renowned photographer Polly Borland. This publication is produced in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Bunny’ which will take place at Michael Hoppen Contemporary in 2008. It takes the viewer through an assemblage of photographs of a giant woman called Gwen that explore femininity and deconstruct the idea of the bunny girl of the playboy world.The book constructs the ‘Bunny’ story with pictorial intelligence and an understanding of the full potential of photography as art form with narrative displacement and construct. Bunny also includes a witty and seductive short poem by Nick Cave, and an equally funny and eccentric modern fairytale by Will Self: “Well now, the bunny was a silly thing and not quite right. She didn’t look like a proper bunny, she had pink fur and her muzzle was sort of bulgy and cartoonish.”

Bunny (Signed Edition)

Borland, Polly

This is a signed limited edition of 450. It is leather bound and comes in a specially made steel box with a biohazard symbol etched on the cover. This large-format book illustrates the complete paintings featured in Damien Hirst’s recent New York exhibition ‘The Elusive Truth’. The book includes full-colour reproductions on hand-tipped in plates, a raised plastic cover displaying the painting ‘Two Pills’ (2004), a characteristically disturbing short story entitled ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ by acclaimed writer J.G. Ballard and die-cut windows that highlight details from the paintings. Damien Hirst has written quotes to accompany each painting throughout the catalogue. Damien Hirst’s art takes on numerous forms. He tackles the big subjects of love, desire, life and death, and creates unavoidable sculptures and paintings that contain irony, wit and wisdom while questioning art’s role in contemporary culture. ‘The Elusive Truth’, Hirst’s recent exhibition of new work signals an exciting new direction in his work. Hardback signed limited edition leather cover, embossed printed plastic tip-in on cover, 22 die-cuts, 31 tipped in plates/stainless steel box and embroidered ribbon.

Damien Hirst: The Elusive Truth, Limited Edition

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