Another country

摘要

Art and Place is a coffee table book, and a big one at that. This is not an authored volume of art criticism, rather it is an editor-produced straight presentation of material. As such, normally I would dismiss it right away. But it grew on me. Partly because it contains a lot of art, sometimes of staggering scale and ambition, of which I knew nothing; partly because South America comes out of this rather better than North America with all its money; partly because of the politics wrapped up in much of it; partly because it gives the art of prehistory equal billing with the art of today and the recent past; and partly because, when it comes to public art, we in the UK have very little to compare to any of this. Once you've immersed yourself in this book, the Angel of the North will seem very small beer.