Art London is more than a guidebook. It will accompany you on a journey through London, telling stories, uncovering histories, sharing insights into those who have made, collected and influenced art past and present. Moving neighbourhood by neighbourhood, Art London travels the streets with you, revealing art in mseums, galleries and beyond, from palace to pub to studio. Whilst Art London includes established galleries, museum and figures, the book also delves deep into the margins, exploring the richly diverse mix of people, movements and places that have shaped the story of art in the capital.
Prodigies, revolutionaries, defiers of the patriarchy; drunks, rebels and impassioned immigrants; queer pioneers, paint-spattered punks and proto-feminists: there have always been artists in London. Some were celebrated in their lifetime, others were out-of-step with the spirit of their age: too radical, too subversive, too modest, too female, too foreign.
“This city and its artists are full of surprises. They’ve been rebelling, innovating, drinking, quarrelling and falling in love for centuries, and all that passion has fed into the great work on show in London’s museums and galleries. Putting Art London together has been a fascinating and entertaining process. I thought I Knew this city, but there was always another hidden history to explore, or a gallery I couldn’t believe I’d not visited. This book is a treausre of stories and spaces waiting to be discovered. They are there for everyone: you just need to know how to find them”, says the author Hettie Judah.
Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry, Mona Hatoum, John Akomfra, Rasheed Araeen, Sunil Gupta, Tracey Emin and Yinka Shonibare were among the artists who agreed to have their portraits taken for this book, while at work in their studios. Alex Schneiderman’s exclusive photographs reveal the human element behind contemporary art, while pictures of streetside galleries place London’s art scene within an ever-expanding cosmopolitan world.
Fascinating, entertaining, full of anecdote and insights, Art London reflects the city itself: energetic, diverse, resilient, occasionally outrageous, and never short of fresh ideas.
Hettie Judah is the chief art critic of the British daily newspaper The I, and a contributor to the Guardian and the New York Times. Her work regularly appears in specialist art publications, including Frieze, Numéro Art, Art Quarterly, Artnet News and Tate Etc. as well as lifestyle publications such as Vogue International, ES Magazine, House & Garden and The Plant magazine, to which she is contributing editor. She is a lecturer at the Christie’s Education art courses in London, presents talks and discussions for museums and art galleries around London and beyond, and has recorded podcasts for the Guardian. She lives and works in Kilburn, London: a neighbourhood immortalised by Leon Kossoff.
More info:
Art London
A Guide to Places, Events and Artists
Hettie Judah, photos by Alex Schneideman
Publisher: ACC Art Books
Pages: 208
Illustrations: 61 color
Paperback with flaps
Out September 2019
Mari Balsamà Wilson 
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