Archive

First major monograph dedicated to the British artist, bringing together visual documentation, texts addressing the artist’s multifarious practice over recent years, and a comprehensive chronology spanning his twenty-year career. Texts by Mark Beasley, Andrea Bellini, Michael Bracewell, James Cahill, Martin Clark, Steven Claydon, Michelle Cotton.

“This book, the first major monograph on British artist Steven Claydon – published on the occasion of his 2015 exhibition at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève –, brings together visual documentation, texts addressing the artist’s multifarious practice over recent years, and a comprehensive chronology spanning his twenty-year career. […] Claydon’s work is rich and complex. As the reader will witness through the pages, his visual lexicon embraces a wide range of references, from contemporary design to technology, from architecture to archaeology, from art history to science fiction, from popular culture to medieval music. Synesthetic connections and associations represent the very essence of the way Claydon works and thinks. This book is conceived both as a tool for better understanding his dynamic and pluralistic practice, and his important role as a precursor to the practices of today’s young artists.”
Andrea Bellini

Published following the exhibition “Analogues, Methods, Monsters, Machines” at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, from September 18 to November 22, 2015.

A key figure in the British contemporary art scene, Steven Claydon (born 1969 in London, where he lives and works) maps the curious, culturally-determined territory in which objects exist. Encompassing sculpture, installation, painting, printmaking, video and performance, his practice frequently addresses the myriad ways in which objects mutate in nature and function across time, oscillating between the conditions of raw matter and social signifiers. Through divergent aesthetics and techniques—from high-tech manufacture to traditional artisanship—Claydon deconstructs the ingrained categories and taxonomies via which information is habitually transmitted and cultural capital is co-opted.