Michael Glover - Böcker

In the Summer of 1940, after evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and the Franco/German armistice which followed the fall of France, Britain stood alone against the armed might of Hitler's Germany, supported only by the forced of her dominions and inspired by little but the rhetoric of her newly-appointed Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.It seemed inevitable at the time that Hitler's next move would be the invasion of Britain and Churchill was not slow to use this threat to unite the people of Britain behind him; for not a few people in influential circles in Britain then favoured a quick settlement with the Fuhrer.Michael Glover's penetrating analysis of the mood of British people that summer, of the German ability to mount an amphibious invasion at the time and of Britain's ability to repel such an invasion shows how ill-founded the scare was, while explaining how well it served the British cause. Hitler, as he shows, had embarked upon a course to which there were only two outcomes - either of which was bound to lead to his ultimate downfall. But in the summer of 1940 the beleaguered inhabitants of Britain were in no mood or position to relax in the comfort of such historical hindsight. Unprepared they may have been, but as the author shows, they were unflinching, unbowed - and, ultimately, undefeated. This is, however, by no means a work of chauvinistic self-congratulations; it is rather a distinguished historian's assessment of the last great invasion scare the British Isles have endured since the Martello towers were built in 1805.

Celebrated British painter Rose Wylie—whose works are at once tactile, cerebral, and humorous—often draws her influence from a wide range of popular culture. Here her newest body of work references memories from her own life and mimics the way memories evolve and change over time.Wylie’s source material is culled from the vast visual world around her, ranging from sixteenth-century British estates to Serena Williams and the French Open. While initially these may seem random or aesthetically simplistic, through the nuanced use of humor, language, and compositional structure, Wylie creates wittily observed and subtly sophisticated meditations on the nature of memory, and visual representation itself, in line with the paintings she has become known for over the course of her career.A new essay by art critic Michael Glover explores the remarkable painter whose work has “spark, assurance, brash humor, an extraordinary, freewheeling eclecticism that seems to be just as ready to suck in references to the art of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman portraiture as to pay homage to the films of Quentin Tarantino and the late paintings of Philip Guston.” Part of David Zwirner Books’s Spotlight Series, this book features Wylie’s newest paintings and drawings and is published on the occasion of the artist’s 2020 solo exhibition of these works at David Zwirner Hong Kong.

This comprehensive monograph offers a detailed examination of the paintings of the acclaimed German painter Neo Rauch (b.1960).Rauch’s paintings deftly blend the iconography of Socialist Realism from his upbringing and art-school training in GDR-era Leipzig with the stylistic mannerisms of the Baroque and Romantic past, conjuring heavily populated sites of great commotion and complexity, remarkably without recourse to preliminary drawing. His compositions and their enigmatic figures are rich with reference and allusion, but the stories they tell are indistinct and somehow out of time. They have an ancient modernity – or the freshness of renewed antiquity.Michael Glover discloses Rauch’s working methods, revealing how the artist approaches the making of his work, how his images come into being, and the importance of words and their etymology to the creation or disruption of an artwork. These are works that interrogate the very meaning of the artistic impulse; ruminations in the guise of history painting that in fact question what a painter could and should be creating at this particular historical moment.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Stirling Prize, Cambridge Central Mosque is a truly innovative building, and one that is sustainable and socially and architecturally integrated into – and respectful of – its neighbourhood. As well as discussing its design and construction, this book focuses on the creation of a unique place of worship for a community. Setting out historic precedents and influences, it highlights how the mosque breaks new ground in terms of Islamic and English religious architectural traditions and how it reflects the ongoing debates on Islam and Britishness, as well as Islam and tradition.The book first sets out how the site and the architects, Marks Barfield Architects, were selected, then goes on to discuss the development of the mosque’s concept, structure and key design aspects, including the significance of geometry to Islam and the defining feature of the building: its timber structure evoking the English fan vaulting used nearby at King’s College. There is also a useful technical section on the many sustainable features of the building and its low carbon design and the book concludes with a discussion of the day-to-day life of the mosque, including interviews with the imam and members of the local community who come from all over the world, highlighting the impact the mosque has had for the wider Cambridge community and beyond.