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The Field by Gary O’Connor

‘This all began with her. When I told her about the field she just laughed so I never mentioned it again. I remember picking up the telephone and hesitating, and Trish encouraging me. She said, “It’s something you always wanted…”’

The vast, flat featureless Fens landscape is the backdrop for the disquieting story of a man whose decision to take singing lessons brings him to question his perception of reality.

Cambridgeshire based artist and writer Gary O’Connor was born in London in 1963. He studied Fine Art at London Guildhall University and completed an MA in Writing the Visual at Norwich School of Art and Design. O’Connor has developed a symbiotic relationship between his writing and his art practice, by incorporating text and spoken word in his artworks. In 2006 he was selected for the Escalator literary programme and awarded an Arts Council grant for The Field.

The Field by Gary O’Connor
Edited by Jeremy Akerman and Eileen Daly
Published by Transition Editions, London
ISBN 978-0-9548954-5-7
32pp, 198 x 130 mm
May 2009
£8.50 plus £1 postage and packing UK
to order email info@akermandaly.com

The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B and Other Stories

Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico and Andy Warhol all wrote fiction – but there has never previously been a compilation of artists’ stories. The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B and Other Stories brings together 17 of Britain’s leading contemporary artists in one collection.

Moving, humorous and sometimes deeply macabre, this collection deals with dementia, mortality, mass murder and madness. A young woman derails a train killing twenty people as an experiment in conquering death; a boy fakes an accident to get the attention of the girl of his dreams; an alpine hiker advocates murder as an environmental clean-up solution; and time goes backwards as we witness the ‘unlynching’ of a paedophile by the local neighbourhood watch. Challenging and expanding notions of what artists do, The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B and Other Stories is a haunting exploration of the impulses that drive today’s artists.

Contributors

Edward Allington, David Batchelor, Ian Breakwell, David Burrows, Brian Catling, Jake Chapman, Juan Cruz, Mikey Cuddihy, Polly Gould, Chris Hammond, Janice Kerbel, Balraj Khanna, Brighid Lowe, Gary O’Connor, Paul Rooney, Jon Thompson and Martin Vincent.

The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B and Other Stories
Edited by Jeremy Akerman and Eileen Daly
Published by Serpent’s Tail
ISBN 978-1-85242-926-3
249pp, 196 x 130 mm
November 2006
£8.99 + £2.50 postage and packing UK
to order email info@akermandaly.com