Film, Nihilism and the Restoration of Belief (Zero Books, 2013)
This book explores the possibility that cinema can challenge our contemporary nihilism and restore belief in new transformative possibilities for living in the world.
Despite the banal clichés which govern much of its current forms, the cinema continues to have a vital political and aesthetic significance through its concern with how we can restore belief in the reality of a world where scepticism and universal pessimism have taken hold. Today we have no more faith in images than we do in the world. It is through the erosion of our commitment to and our sincerity towards our ways of being in the world that nihilism and despair has taken hold. This can only be addressed through a renewal of faith in our capacity to transform the world. This faith will give us back the reality of a world eroded by the restrictive capitalist ontology of modernity, by opening the possibility of an alternative way of living, being and thinking. This book will discuss the means by which some of the most fascinating filmmakers have grasped the vocation of resisting and transforming the present, and of cultivating new forms of belief in the world when total alienation appears inevitable and intractable.
Francis Bacon: New Studies (Steidl, 2009)
Edited by Martin Harrison.
With essays from Darren Ambrose, Richard Calvocoressi, Rebecca Daniels, Hugh M. Davies, Marcel Finke, Martin Harrison, Andrew R. Lee, Brenda Marshall and Joanna Russell.
(Darren Ambrose, ‘Bacon’s Spiritual Realism – The Spirit in the Body’, pp. 11-46)
The paintings of Francis Bacon are so confrontationally wordless in their articulations of the human plight that they seem-almost as a result-to attract continual commentary and meditation (not least from Bacon himself). Since Bacon’s studio and its contents were moved to Dublin, and those contents at last documented and examined, a wealth of information has come to light about the artist’s processes, his working habits, his readings and his source material. Benefiting from these new resources for Bacon studies, and marking the centenary of the artist’s birth, this collection of nine essays from leading scholars worldwide is full of fascinating new takes on the work.
Francis Bacon: Critical and Theoretical Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2012)
Edited by Rina Arya
With essays by Darren Ambrose, Stephen Turk, John G Hatch, Rina Arya, Nicholas Chare and Martin Hammer.
(Darren Ambrose, ‘Deleuze’s Bacon: Automatism and Pictorial Fact’, pp. 169-193)
This collection of essays on Francis Bacon (1909-1992) pays tribute to the legacy, influence and power of his art. The volume widens the relevance of Bacon in the twenty-first century and looks at new ways of thinking about or reframing him. The contributors consider the interdisciplinary scope of Bacon’s work, which addresses issues in architecture, continental philosophy, critical theory, gender studies and the sociology of the body, among others. Bacon’s work is also considered in relation to other artists, philosophers and writers who share similar concerns. The innovation of the volume lies in this move away from both an art historical framework and a focus on the artist’s biographical details, in order to concentrate on new perspectives, such as how current scholars in different disciplines consider Bacon, what his relevance is to a contemporary audience, and the wider themes and issues that are raised by his work.
Claire Morgan: Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside (Mission Gallery, 2012)
With Catalogue essay by Darren Ambrose – ‘A Warning from the Sun’
Responding to the location of Mission Gallery and drawn to our relationship with the sea, and more specifically to our presence on its periphery, Claire Morgan created delicate sculptural installations which included insects and taxidermy, to present the viewer with a moment of suspended time.
Claire Morgan: The Slow Fire (Galerie Karsten Greve, 2014)
With essays by Darren Ambrose and Stefanie Kreuzer
(Darren Ambrose – ‘A Vibrant Silence’)
‘Morgan has fashioned an original form of eco-poetic sculpture as a way for us to reflect upon our continued dislocation from nature and what it might mean to dwell upon the earth in this time of emergency. By coming to inhabit the enigmatic spaces of this eco-poetic art we are offered an opportunity to affectively experience the aberrant discordance between man and animal and to begin to imagine what it might be like to live differently on earth.’
Francis Bacon: France and Monaco (Heni Publishing, 2017)
Edited by Martin Harrison
With essays by Majid Boustany, Martin Harrison, Sarah Whitfield, Amanda Harrison, Carol Jacobi, Eddy Batache, Catherine Howe, Darren Ambrose, Rebecca Daniels and James Wishart
(Darren Ambrose – Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophical Image of Francis Bacon)
The first in-depth publication to uncover the long relationship Francis Bacon enjoyed with France, Monaco and French culture. Martin Harrison, the foremost expert on Bacon, brings a new light to a somewhat unexpected side of the artist’s life and work. It was in Paris in 1927, at an exhibition dedicated to Picasso, that Francis Bacon grasped his vocation as a painter. In 1946, he moved to Monaco on the French Riviera where he lived for four years, his time in the Principality marking a turning point in his art; with his “popes” series, he became a painter of the human figure. In Paris he befriended artists and intellectuals, such as Giacometti and Leiris, whilst the city would become the setting for the crystalisation of his reputation in 1971 with the retrospective at the Grand Palais. In 1975, Bacon would take a studio in the Marais district. This bilingual publication tells of Bacon’s deep ties with France and Monaco, and has been overseen by Martin Harrison, author of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné.
Claire Morgan: The Sound of Silence (Het Noordbrabants, 2017)
With Catalogue Essay by Darren Ambrose – ‘Claire Morgan – Beauty. Irony. Silence.’
‘The irony and parody of Morgan’s sculptures can serve to arrest and disturb our normal habitual modes of perception, to render things strange and poetically allusive again. They offer an opportunity for us to silence our narcissistic monologues and to have a chance at opening a new dialogue with the enigmatic otherness of nature. By carefully weaving nature back into the fabric of our own orbit, back into proximity with our own human world, these sculptures can rejuvenate our carnal empathy with the living earth.’
k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016) (Repeater, 2018)
Edited by Darren Ambrose, with a foreword by Simon Reynolds
This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 – 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental health and popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on “Acid Communism”; and a number of important interviews from the last decade.
Hi Darren,
Are you the same Darren Ambrose who worked at Canterbury Christ Church?
Hope you are well even if you are not him!).
Best wishes,
Liz Hoult