What the Butler Saw : Selected Writings by Stuart Morgan. This item is unavailable.What the Butler Saw : Selected Writings by Stuart Morgan

What the Butler Saw contains essays and interviews by Stuart Morgan, one of Britain's leading art critics. Opening with a group of essays on American artists such as Robert Smithson, Alice Aycock, Dennis Oppenheim and William Wegman, the collection moves on to European art of the eighties, with particular reference to art in Britain and the legacy of conceptual art. From interviews with figures as diverse as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski, Stephen Campbell and Richard Prince, the essays proceed to younger artists: Steven Pippin, Rachel Whiteread, Miroslaw Balka and, in a previously unpublished text, Damien Hirst. The selection also includes the performance art of Anthony Howell, the cartoons of Glen Baxter, and the self-exposure of Robert Mapplethorpe, Jeff Koons and Madonna.

In his foreword, Thomas McEvilley calls Morgan "the pre-eminent British art critic for perhaps 15 years now." This collection of 50 pieces written between 1977 and 1995 contains essays and interviews with many leading American and European artists of the Eighties and early Nineties culled from art magazines and museum catalogs. Stylistically, Morgan is witty whether writing on subjects high or low. Ideologically, he is left of center without being doctrinaire, not unlike the artists about whom he writes. Although this collection has much to recommend it, the absence of illustrations will be a drawback to readers unfamiliar with the artists' works. In addition, the book includes only one previously unpublished text, which makes this a necessary purchase only for those collections with a particularly strong focus on contemporary art.?Heidi Winston, NYPL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.