An essential overview as well as a theoretical critique for all students of design history. Walker studies the intellectual discipline of Design History and the issues that confront scholars writing histories of design.Taking his approach from a range of related fields, he discusses the problems of defining design and writing history. He considers the different methods that leading scholars have used in the absence of a theoretical framework, and looks critically at a number of his...

The growing cult of the celebrity in contemporary culture is throwing up paradoxical ideas about the contradictions between 'high' art and mass appeal and blurring the already unstable boundaries between art, commodity and popular culture.This is a lively and accessible study of the phenomenon, informed by a look at what happens when the 'serious' world of art collides with celebrity. Global culture is now dominated by celebrities, some of whom, like Madonna and Stallone, are art c...

When art hits the headlines, it is usually because it has caused offence or is perceived by the media to have shock-value. Over the last fifty years many artists have been censored, vilified, accused of blasphemy and obscenity, threatened with violence, prosecuted and even imprisoned. Their work has been trashed by the media and physically attacked by the public.In Art & Outrage, John A. Walker covers the period from the late 1940s to the 1990s to provide the first detailed survey ...

Can fine art survive in an age of mass media? If so, in what forms and to what purpose? And can radical art still play a critical role in today's divided world?These are the questions addressed in the Art in the Age of Mass Media, as John Walker examines the fascinating relationship between art and mass media, and the myriad interactions between high and low culture in a postmodern, culturally pluralistic world.Using a range of historic and contemporary works of art, Walker...

The vibrant fine arts and mass culture that the United Stated exported to Britain in the postwar period had a powerful and far-reaching impact on many British artists, art students and critics. In a fascinating social and cultural history covering the period from the 1940s to the 1990s, but with emphasis on the 1950s and 1960s, John A. Walker offers a scholarly but accessible account of America's Cold War cultural offensive and the role played by American artists living in Britain....

This is a true story about a man who was born at the outbreak of the First World War, and who served in Italy during the Second World War. The story kicks off at the beginning of the First World War. George lives a wonderful life in the country next to a small farm, Meikle Dripps, in Scotland. Like all young men he rejoices when the jazz age comes about, and at this point he starts work in a newspaper office in town. Unfortunately in 1936 he falls ill and is paid off. Thankfully he recover...

This book, first published in 1987, was the first major survey of the links between the visual arts and pop music over the last thirty years. It brings to light the ideas, styles and people who have influenced both the look of pop and the shape of art. It examines how pop uses art movements like Dada, Futurism and Surrealism in everything from the design of album covers to the creation of a group’s look, stage act and video; how art uses pop, as a subject for painting, sculpture and design...

Moina is surprised when she is told by her father that she is named after the woman who founded the poppy movement. She is so excited about this that she becomes a supporter of those who have served their country.While working in her local hotel, she comes across two characters who she thinks are going to plant a bomb in the city of London: Mustafa Pasha and Carlos the Cockroach.Moina decides to followed them, and with the help of her friend Ted, who works for the Daily Glo...

Theo Rosenberg, originally a newspaper journalist, as a young man went behind the Berlin Wall in 1984. Forty years later, he accepts an offer to work in his home city of Glasgow. The position he takes up is editor of Clipe Media. As soon as he does this he is contacted by someone he met all those years ago Behind the Wall. This agency are keen for him to offer their stories to the public in his new job. He is only too happy to comply. It is a one year contract. In that time, he plans to ma...

The Pop Festival is the first book in the Silent Trilogy. The novel is set at the beginning of the 21st century. Pop culture by this time has long faded into the past. All the movements and cults of the twenty-first century go into the city to celebrate the old Pop Festival. The event takes place every year, and it gives the people of the new era a chance to try and understand what pop culture was all about. The novel was first published in 1995. 'Well worth investigating,' Scotsman

It was such a great mystery how every day the Zephyrman got up early and followed the wind. There was no one like him. And here he was today coming along the street where the young lad lived with his mum and dad and sister. After speaking to the Zephyrman the young lad tells him that he too one day will follow the wind. However, the young lad is curious to know where the old man goes; so he decides to follow him. When they reach the city something terrible happens to the old man, and the y...

Art-lovers is set in 1982 and is the story of a young man called Henry Bowers. Henry wants to change society and culture with his art. He feels that the new vibrant culture is being slowly manipulated by industry, and in a few years time it will be all but gone in shape and form. The young artist wants to save it from being destroyed.When he makes up his mind to become an artist everything from that moment is done exactly right. However no one seems interested in him, and he is outl...