Prime: Art’s Next Generation, various editors, Phaidon, £55, 448pp (hb)
Phaidon releases its latest roundup of “rising stars in contemporary art”, featuring more than 100 of the “most distinctive and innovative artists working today”—all born between 1980 and 1995—nominated by a jury of the same age group. Representatives from institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Barbican in London, along with the commercial players such as Gagosian and Phillips, have helped choose the art stars of tomorrow. Selected artists include Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Tschabalala Self, Salman Toor, Prabhakar Pachpute and Issy Wood. The book title may be interpreted in a number of ways but a statement says that above all “the book is a primer on the landscape of contemporary art as it exists today”.
Dennis Creffield in 2014 Photo: Nicholas Sinclair
Dennis Creffield: Art and Life, Richard Cork, Lund Humphries, £40, 208pp (hb)
The first monograph on Dennis Creffield (1931-2018) charts the artist’s life and achievements, from his experiences as a teenager under the tutelage of the British painter David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic in London to his extensive body of work based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Creffield’s standout project was drawing all 26 of England’s medieval cathedrals over a six-month stint in 1987 but he is still relatively unknown (according to The Spectator, the distinguished American painter R.B. Kitaj once described Creffield as “England’s most closely guarded secret”). The chapters cover topics such as “exploring English cathedrals in a camper van”, “visiting Jerusalem and brooding on atom bombs” and “boyhood, Bomberg and the Borough”.
Andrea Maestro's vase features in the 1,000 Vases book
1,000 Vases, Pier Paolo Pitacco and Meet My Project (editor), Skira Editore, $60, 928pp (hb)
This survey presents new works by more than 300 artists from 35 countries, many from the UK. The vessels in question are made from a vast range of materials—ceramic, terracotta, porcelain, metal, wood, glass and recycled plastic—using techniques both ancient and ultra-modern, such as 3D printing. In the introduction, the architect Silvana Annicchiarico writes: “Anthropomorphic, zoomorphic or phytomorphic, rigorously geometric or with unstable geometry, archaic or futuristic, monochrome or brightly coloured, all display the same focus on form and function.” Crucially, more than 80% of the vases have been made by artists born between 1988 and 1993. Practitioners featured include Ella Gutman, Andrea Maestri and David van Slooten.
Peter Saul, Annabelle Ténèze, Richard Shiff and Bruce Hainley, Rizzoli New York, £60, 320pp (hb)
Peter Saul’s canvases are home to highly stylised depictions of nearly every US president since Richard Nixon. The artist fuses movements including Surrealism, Pop, the Bay Area’s Funk Art, and Chicago’s Hairy Who, exploring themes such as climate change, the pitfalls of capitalism, art history, and the foibles of identity. This major monograph, the first on the artist, spans his work from the 1950s to today, featuring comic book characters such as Mickey Mouse and real-life caricatures such as the former President Donald Trump. “Even still-lifes in the artist’s hands transform into politically inflected works: a series of paintings from 2021 featuring flowers and bowls of fruit teetering on a table edge are cautionary tales about climate change,” according to a statement.