Beauty: In Some Recent Art

The term "beauty" has been all but expunged from recent art criticism. And yet it remains a quality that many artists over the last 50 years have regarded as vital to their work, in both form and subject matter. Michael Bracewell and Charles Asprey argue for a return of aesthetics to the science of feelings: in other words, a concept of beauty that is less about representation than it is about memoir, fictional devices and the profundity of human relationships. Their treatise is illustrated with works by an international group of artists, from Gilbert & George to Isa Genzken, Kai Althoff, Lucy McKenzie, Barkley Hendricks and Wolfgang Tillmans. Printed with Japanese Takeo papers, this book is a work of beauty in itself.
Michael Bracewell (born 1958) is the author of seven novels and four works of nonfiction, including Souvenir: London 1979–1986 (2021) and Unfinished Business (2023).
Charles Asprey is the founder of Picpus Press, an influential arts journal, and the cofounder of Ridinghouse.