Exhibition publication edited by Madeleine Kennedy. Designed by Rafaela Dražić. Published by the Laing Art Gallery, October 2019.
Featuring essays by Emma Cheatle, Lalla Essaydi, Zeynep Inankur, and Madeleine Kennedy. Foreword by Julie Milne. Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Available from the Guildhall Art Gallery and Laing Art Gallery.
Image description: A hardback book whose cover shows a grayscale close-up of a Pre-Raphaelite painting of a woman in profile. A gold grid pattern is embossed over the image, creating the impression that the woman is behind a metal enclosure. In the top left square of the grid, the words ‘The Enchanted Interior’ appear in gothic font.
Image description: An open book, the page on the left showing a full-bleed section of Victorian wallpaper featuring sleeping beauty reclining on a hammock among thorn-covered vines, and the Prince approaching from the right. The page on the right shows the start of a catalogue essay entitled ‘Absent Comforts – Walls, Windows, Doors, Holes’ by Emma Cheatle.
Photos © Rafaela Dražić.
Artist monograph edited by Alistair Robinson & Madeleine Kennedy. Designed by Joanna Deans. Published by Kerber, March 2019.
Featuring texts by Sarah Cook, Madeleine Kennedy, Alistair Robinson, Emily Stamey, Carmen Victor.
Available from the Kerber Verlag website.
Image description: A large book is open to a full spread image of a dimly lit redbrick room, reminiscent of a cellar. In the centre of the room is a freestanding wall, on which a very large greyscale photographic image is installed of a twisted tree whose leaves seem to shimmer like crystals in a barren night-time landscape.
Expansive Presentations: A curator interview about Exploding Collage. Published December 2018.
Read the interview in full on the Aesthetica website.
Image description: The headline and lead image of an article called ‘Expansive Presentations’ in Aesthetica magazine. The image show an unidentifiable woman in a red dress, wearing one glove that is embroidered with red thread in the shape of the veins and capillaries of a hand. She is gently touching a chequerboard table, upon which sits a semi-figurative sculpture, a camera, and two elaborate shells.
Interview with Dan Holdsworth in Mapping the Limits of Space. Published by Hatje Cantz, April 2018.
Available from the Hatje Cantz website.
Image description: The front cover of a large book covered in off-white canvas, featuring an extremely finely rendered digital 3D point-cloud image of mountainous terrain in an array of white, grey and blue tones on a black background. The title embossed at the top of the page reads ‘Mapping the Limits of Space: Dan Holdsworth’.
Article published in Rewriting or Reaffirming the Canon? Critical Readings of Exhibition History. Stedelijk Studies, Issue 2, Spring 2015. Edited by Linda Boersma and Patrick Van Rossem.
Extract below, and available to read in full on the Stedelijk Studies website.
Image description: The headline of an online article in Stedelijk Studies that reads ‘Documenting the Marvelous: The Risks and Rewards of Relying on Installation Photographs in the Writing of Exhibition History’.
Essay published in John Kippin: Based on a True Story. Edited by Alistair Robinson. Designed by Alison Barratt. Published by Kerber, May 2018.
Available from the Kerber Verlag website.
Image description: The front cover of a book with the name Kippin in large gold font, two letters of which are obscured behind a gloss image embedded into the surface of the cover that depicts a four story building with Grecian columns and sash windows. The title above the image reads: ‘Based on a True Story’.
Edited by Alistair Robinson. Published by Distanz, August 2021. With writings by the artist, Charles Esche, Chris Gilbert, Tom Hopkin, Madeleine Kennedy, Marina Martić, Alistair Robinson, Marcus Verhagen, and a conversation with the artist by Giovanna C. Coppola.
Chad McCail’s (b. Manchester, 1961; lives and works in Thankerton, Scotland) artistic practice comprises illustrations, paintings, and installations as well as theater and performance workshops, all dedicated to the quest for visions of a new world. For over 20 years, he has made drawings in the style of instruction leaflets or graphic manuals, bearing descriptive titles like People Take Turns to Do the Difficult Jobs, Wealth Is Shared, Money Is Destroyed, Prisoners Are Freed, and People Stop Using Things. What might seem ironic pleasantries turn out upon closer examination to be serious inquiries into alternatives to the norms that rule our everyday lives. McCail probes issues around sexuality and violence, focusing on psychoanalytical practices. Simulating the pedagogical appeal of children’s book illustrations, his works chart an alternative reality of life. The monograph illuminates McCail’s conceptual and intuitive psychoanalytical approach.
Image description: A square book cover showing a human-like sculpture comprised of hundreds of small figures made of multi-coloured blocks that appear to have their arms interlocked. The large human-like figure is slightly bent forward, holding the legs of another human-like figure made of white office equipment. The title of the book reads: ‘Chad McCail: Giants.’
Image description: An open page spread of a book showing two install photographs of a very long white wall in a gallery, on which a black line drawing depicts a scene of hundred foot tall creatures – one human-like and one lizard-like – rampaging through a townscape of neat rows of houses and tree-lined streets.