The Role of a Lifetime combines three disparate elements. The first is an interview with the British filmmaker Peter Watkins, recorded in Lithuania.... The second is a sequence of drawings of the Lithuanian landscape, some depicting an unusual theme park, Gruto Park.... The third comprises footage of Brighton life, shot by an amateur film enthusiast....

An illustrated investigation into the critical motives behind the last, unfinished work that has defined the romantic legacy of conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. In 1975 Bas Jan Ader disappeared at sea while trying to sail from the East Coast of the United States to Europe as part of a project titled In Search of the Miraculous. Ader's considerable influence on later conceptual artists stems from the way in which he used the cool analytic and antisubjective aesthetics of conceptual art to explore experiences that would seem definitively subjective—the emotional intensity of tragedy and the romantic quest for the sublime. In Search of the Miraculous was conceived as a three-part project: a lonely nighttime walk from the hills of Los Angeles down to the sea, documented in photographs; the Atlantic crossing; a night walk through Amsterdam, mirroring the LA photographs.The circumstances of his disappearance have led many interpreters to identify Ader (as a person) with the role of the tragic romantic hero. The cult status of the artist as a hero whose work is authenticated through his death, however, has obscured the fact that Ader's art was a critical investigation of precisely those romantic motives his persona has now come to be identified with. This book unpicks these ties in Ader's work in order to highlight the specific and unique way in which Ader explores the existential and emotional with an artistic approach that is as conceptual and analytic as it is poetic and personal. Afterall Books are distributed by The MIT Press.

Anu Põder (1947?2013) was one of the most fascinating artists in contemporary Estonian sculpture and installation art. Starting her career in the 1970s, her work mostly dealt with family life, internal struggles and the emotional realm, framed by the constraining norms and taboos of the Soviet regime. Thanks to Anu Põder?s artistic position we can see clearly the effect social development had on the life and options of an individual, how each person became someone else?s context. Unlike her peers, Põder used ephemeral materials: textile, wax, plaster, soap, epoxy, plastic, and wood, and used herself as the measure of her works. Her art works even age like people; they change colour, become deformed, disintegrate, but their initial fragile nature becomes increasingly apparent and vivid over time, offering new possibilities for interpreting all of Estonia?s recent history.00Exhibition: Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia (17.03.?06.08.2017).

Wolfgang Tillmans' (b.1968) first book, published in 1995 when the artist was just 24 years old, sold 40,000 copies and is a cult manual of young style and photography. Tillmans is a rare example of a photographer who has expanded his audience into the art world. This is the first book to draw together all the different episodes from Tillmans' high-profile, exciting career. Tillmans became known in the early 1990s for his photographs of young people in their social environments: clubs, Gay Pride parades, house parties. His style is enigmatic, sexy and highly innovative, inventing new icons of beauty and style for millions of young readers internationally. Images such as Lutz and Alex Sitting in the Trees(1992) - a couple perched in a tree, naked save for their incongruous raincoats - are emblems of his generation. His subjects are self-stylized and do not conform to standard notions of attractiveness and chic, yet their personalities and youth make them irresistibly seductive. Tillmans' style is often imitated, yet he remains the master of the photographic style he created. Alongside portraits, Tillmans has expanded his subject matter to include architecture, landscape and still life, and has produced installations reminscent of the collage techniques of the 1960s Conceptual artists. From lifestyle magazine spreads Tillmans has moved to room-sized installations: for example, his series of distant views of Concorde flying overhead (Concorde, 1997) as well as a series of found photographs of soldiers from newspapers (Soldiers - The Nineties, 1999). In such installations of unframed photos stuck to the wall with tape, he references his own non-art origins and his continuing goal of breaking down the old-fashioned divisions between art, fashion and photography. In his Survey critic Jan Verwoert examines Tillmans' key pursuit across his career: to find contemoprary art icons by 'testing' photographic images. Artist and theorist Peter Halley discusses with the artist his rapidly changed role, from Wunderkinder superstar of the mid 1990s to internationally respected and emulated, Turner prize-winning master of the 'new photography'. Critic and curator Midori Matsui analyses a single project, Concorde (1997), an installation and artists' book which records the daily passing of this epoch-making aeroplane. The artist has selected an extract from a nineteenth-century Quaker text by Caroline Stephen on divine inspiration, which reflects the artist's own interest in simplicity and truth. The Artist's Writings include excerpts from a key interview with Neville Wakefield (1995) and spreads from his artist's books.

Born in Nuremberg in 1966, Kartscher's work portrays fantasy worlds for contemporary women. Free of social, emotional and psychological constraints, Kartscher's women celebrate their femininity within fantastical, elegant and immense landscapes. A narrative unfolds from flowing graphic lines in marker ink on paper or fabric; projecting into the viewer's reality, these two dimensional images are sometimes adorned with significant accessories such as gilded chains or form the surface of objects such as boudoir screens or awnings. Blending elements drawn from science fiction, antique etchings, digital architecture, found photgraphs, product packaging and botanical illustration, Kartscher draws the viewer to a meeting place of past, present and future, where she explores themes of post-feminist identity.

This first monograph on the young Berlin-and-Tokyo-based American Conceptual artist features photography, video and text projects that question urban space and its representations in the media. In the densely-grouped systems of reference included here, Snyder uses original and reprocessed archival materials.

Published to accompany exhibition held at Tate Britain, 1 March - 14 May 2006. Features 36 artists working in a range of media.