Aesthetica Magazine Issue 30

August / September 2010

This issue marks the 30th edition and also a new look for Aesthetica. Inside this issue Rankin chats about his new project, Rankin Live, Bob & Roberta Smith launches an 11-metre painting at this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, Grayson Perry curates Unpopular Culture at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and Artists Anonymous skilfully play with broader meanings and definitions of the word “artist”.

In film we continue with Part Two of the DIY Guide and look at Sally Potter’s new film Rage. It’s the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the first music festival, and Acoustic Ladyland chat about new jazz, while Metta Theatre give their rendition of Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding, and in literature Chika Unigwe talks about being the first writer of African origin to publish in Dutch, and finally an extract from Neil Forsyth’s new book Let Them Come Through. This issue is about experimentation and taking bold risks.

A World History of Art

A mammoth text, now in its seventh revised edition, this is a seminal work looking at the history of art from “before history” through to the third millennium.

Woodstock: Three Days that Rocked the World

This book is a brilliant artefact of the event. It opens with a foreword by the venerable Martin Scorsese, and is organised in three parts “Origins” “The Event” and “The Aftermath”.

George Orwell Narrative Essays

Narrative Essays, part of a set with Critical Essays, was collected by George Packer to do justice to Orwell’s extra-ordinary talents as a non-fiction writer.

Angels of Destruction

Donohue has a mastery of the time-space continuum, with a narrative arc that spans three decades in a heart-wrenching exploration of the human condition.

Small Wars

Sadie Jones has done it again. Not only has she sold 400,000 copies of her debut, The Outcast, but also created a new story, rich in complex human relationships.

Q&A with Neil Forsyth

In conversation with Neil Forsyth

The Luxury of Shame

The latest African writer to come to prominence in Europe, Unigwe engages with prejudice and polarised conceptions of right and wrong.

Immersive Theatre Now

A radical restructuring of Federico García Lorca from Metta Theatre, tackles our preoccupation with knife-crime and highlights the writer’s relevance today.

Andy Balman

Andy Balman started his career in events and moved into the arts when he jointly set up and ran the Biscuit Factory, Europe’s largest commercial art gallery.

Bastila

There’s no beating about the bush here as Bastila attack like ADD drummer-boys on Christmas day in opening tracks You Can’t Catch Me and The Slacker.

Larry Tee

Having worked the New York club circuit for over a decade, Larry Tee is frequently credited as responsible for the initiation of electro-clash.

Royal City

The band brings together a combination of psychedelic rock and New American Weird to team idiosyncratic lyrics with nostalgic melodies and raw guitar riffs.

Little Dragon

Little Dragon’s influences oscillate between pop, jazz, soul and R&B, creating atmospheric tracks like Never Never, and the more experimental Come Home.

Lecube

Often compared to the likes of Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith and Syd Barrett, Julien Barbagallo aka AKA Lecube holds a special place in the music world.

Telekinesis

From the very first sun-drenched guitar chord, Telekinesis! is imbued with an overarching immediacy – wrenched, quickly, from somewhere raw and honest.

Acoustic Ladyland

In 2006, Acoustic Ladyland released Skinny Grin to great critical acclaim. Living with a Tiger is the long-awaited follow-up, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Woodstock 40th Anniversary

As Woodstock celebrates its 40th anniversary, the nostalgia for those three very important days back in August 1969 is almost omnipresent.

DIY Filmmaking

In this edition, we’ve teamed up with Shooting People and Branchange Jersey International Film Festival 2009 to give you hints and tips for finding successful routes to market for your short films.

Cinematography stripped bare

Rage strips away cinematic paraphernalia to the bare minimum of the character and their emotion, the basic elements which are all too often left behind in cinema.

Who Really is the Artist?

The London and Berlin based collective Artists Anonymous resist definitions and skilfully create interplay between anonymity and the artist.