An overview of John Stezaker’s film still collages, this book showcases the evolution of the artist’s relationship with a specific material. Leading British collage and appropriation artist John Stezaker began his ongoing series of film still collages in 1979
the result of a period that marked a crucial change in the direction of the artist’s work, which had previously been centred around a text-based ‘conceptualism’. AUTHOR: David Campany is a British writer, curator and academic specialising in photography, cinema and art. He is the author of many essays and books, including Indeterminacy: Thoughts on Time, The Image and Race(ism), co-written with Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (MACK 2022); On Photographs (2020); and The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip (2014). Renowned for his rigorous and accessible writing and public speaking, Campany has worked with institutions including MoMA, New York; Tate; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Photographers’ Gallery, London; and Aperture. The series moves with Stezaker’s changing interests, using stills from classic American-period Hitchcock films as raw material before shifting towards the undistinguishable mass of 1940s and early 1950s low-budget studio films. Featuring collages based on a combination of film still excisions and superimpositions, this ongoing series is catalogued comprehensively for the first time in this volume, which brings together Stezaker’s earliest film still collages with his most recent. Full-colour illustrations are accompanied by an essay by David Campany and a conversation between the critic and the artist. John Stezaker (b.1949, Worcester) is one of the leading artists in contemporary photographic collage and appropriation. Employing vintage photographs, old Hollywood film stills, travel postcards and other printed matter, Stezaker creates small-format collages that bear qualities of Surrealism, Dada and found art. Stezaker studied at the Slade School of Art and has taught at the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins School of Art, London. In 2012 he was awarded the Deutsche Boerse photography prize following a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. His work has been exhibited internationally since the 1990s and is held in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Arts Council England; and Tate. SELLING POINTS: . This richly illustrated volume provides an overview of the film still collages of leading British Conceptual artist John Stezaker . The artist’s collages in this series date from 1979 onwards, marking a transformation from his text-based works to the image-based ones for which he is well known . Focuses on the highly distinctive collages for which Stezaker is most recognised . An interview with the artist and a critical text by art writer David Campany give a rich context to Stezaker’s decades-long dedication to film still collages 63 colour illustrations