Kirjahaku

The most comprehensive monograph on one of the most enigmatic photographers of the 20th century - now in paperback "Woodman's pioneering style and technique have made her one of America's most notable and well-respected photographers of the late 20th century." —Aesthetica The precocious and brilliant American artist Francesca Woodman, is one of post-war photography's most original figures. This important book includes a major review of her life's work based on research by art historian Chris Townsend, together with extracts and facsimile pages from Francesca's personal journals edited and curated by her father, George Woodman. This unique and much-admired book is now available for the first time in paperback.

This highly sensitive and beautifully written book looks closely at the way contemporary Western artists negotiate death, both as personal experience and in the wider community. Townsend discusses but moves beyond the 'spectacle of death' in work by artists such as Damien Hirst to see how mortality - in particular the experience of other people's death - brings us face to face with profound ethical and even political issues. He looks at personal responses to death in the work of artists as varied as Francis Bacon, Tracey Emin and Derek Jarman, whose film 'Blue' is discussed here in depth. Exploring the last body of work by the the Kentucky-based photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, and Jewish American installation artist Shimon Attie's powerful memorial work for the community of Aberfan, Townsend considers death in light of the injunction to 'love they neighbour'.