When you’ve produced a series of excellent media-based guides, it makes sense (and will always be irresistible to marketing departments) to put them together in a doorstep volume.
Such is this. I’ve always doubted whether “real” artists buy this sort of thing, as they usually have a favourite medium or two and regard others as interlopers. Friends, however, or those considering having a go, are prime targets.
At twenty quid, this is at the top end of the price range for this kind of book, but the material is recent and, it should be said, first-rate. The ten pound variety is usually recycled from books published long ago and frequently anonymous.
Well, OK, the chapters here are anonymous too, except for acknowledgements at the back, but that’s perhaps inevitable if you’re going to present a coherent whole rather than a blindingly obvious bind-up. The approach works, not least because this isn’t a book to read from cover to cover, so changes of style, presentation and working won’t be immediately obvious. Yes, I am labouring this point, but a compilation is a compilation and should at least be consistent within itself, and this is.
If you want to know about the individual sections, click the publisher link below and look for media-specific titles. The gang’s all there.
Click the picture to view on Amazon
Artbookreview.net 