Carnival of Perception: Selected Writings on Art

This publication is a detailed collection of writings from over three decades of my work, selected and completely re-edited by the author to produce an entirely original sum of their parts.

The conjoined writings explore the different contexts of my critical insight into the art production of artists located around the world. As such they reflect the idiosyncrasies of the art critical approach rather than an art historical investigation into movements and periods. Nevertheless, by placing discussions on the work of these disparate yet extraordinary artists together something of the reviewer, the art critic emerges, which in an academic context can be described as a distinct methodology.

The book has a preface by Yve-Alain Bois and was launched by inIVA at the Hayward Gallery.

'Guy Brett's book is indeed a carnival of unexpected pleasures. His unique selection of artists ... allows him to get under the skin of his own and other cultures. With unassuming honesty and political integrity, he explores subjects ranging from breakthrough avant-garde art to agriculture, decoration and Latin American angels. What Brett says of Gabriel Orozco could well be applied to his own writings: "an agile, ironic and tender consciousness".'
Lucy R. Lippard

A distinctive voice in art criticism since the 1960s, Guy Brett has followed an independent path in mapping and interpreting contemporary art. Instrumental in making the work of Latin American artists accessible to a wider public, Carnival of Perception includes seminal essays on key Latin American practitioners, as well as texts that explore the cross-cultural and experimental diversity of the London art scene since the 1960s. Linked to these individual studies are wide-ranging and imaginative writings on the nature of decorative art, the figure of the angel in Latin American 'colonial painting', art as sanctuary, and the question of British identity.

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