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Islands and Contemporary Art
304 pages, Hardcover
Published December 18, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 11, 2025
This is a very ambitious book. The author attempts to cover a big topic. For me, it was disappointing, but it may not be the author’s fault.
The islands are diverse and the book attempts to cover them all be they large or small, in the tropics or in cold countries or sparsely or densely populated. Similarly, there is an attempt to cover diverse formats: film, novels, poems, photography, landscape art, installations, etc.
The result is a book with a lot of mentions and a few multi-page write ups but little overall analysis.
Chapters such as “Disappearing and Endangered Islands” and “Island Detentions” work the best because they focus on their topic. Still, like the other chapters they have an overload of references making it hard to determine what is significant.
An example is in the chapter on "Island Homes". There are three pages and a photo about a trimaran wreck that inspired the movie “Oh Mercy”. It’s hard to see (other than Colin Firth in the film’s lead) how this is more significant than the many books and films that get a mention, a sentence or a paragraph in that chapter.
The author seems knowledgeable. It would be good to have her produce individual books focusing on a specific genre or island group. One that could be spectacular could be a book devoted to island inspired contemporary installations. There are many cited in this book that seem to deserve more attention.
The islands are diverse and the book attempts to cover them all be they large or small, in the tropics or in cold countries or sparsely or densely populated. Similarly, there is an attempt to cover diverse formats: film, novels, poems, photography, landscape art, installations, etc.
The result is a book with a lot of mentions and a few multi-page write ups but little overall analysis.
Chapters such as “Disappearing and Endangered Islands” and “Island Detentions” work the best because they focus on their topic. Still, like the other chapters they have an overload of references making it hard to determine what is significant.
An example is in the chapter on "Island Homes". There are three pages and a photo about a trimaran wreck that inspired the movie “Oh Mercy”. It’s hard to see (other than Colin Firth in the film’s lead) how this is more significant than the many books and films that get a mention, a sentence or a paragraph in that chapter.
The author seems knowledgeable. It would be good to have her produce individual books focusing on a specific genre or island group. One that could be spectacular could be a book devoted to island inspired contemporary installations. There are many cited in this book that seem to deserve more attention.
February 19, 2025
Very excellent study of contemporary art and islands. Great angles and writing. Would highly recommend
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews