Robert Shore – författare

A book to put the Midlands back on the map.Everyone knows what they think of the North and South of England – the clichés abound. But what about that big, anonymous stretch of land in between: the Midlands? Despite being home to around a third of the English population, it’s a region that seems to have neither purpose nor identity. In this humorous exploration, the author – a Midlander exiled in London – sets off on a tour of the country’s belly in order to piece together his Midland heritage. What he discovers is nothing short of revelatory: quietly, without fanfare, the Midlands have powered most of English – and not just a little of world – history.The Industrial Revolution was forged there, as were the ideals of the Land of the Free and the theory of evolution. Shakespeare, world literature’s greatest genius, was born in the Midlands, as were Margaret Thatcher, Dr Johnson and Robbie Williams. It is the home of Robin Hood, Walker’s crisps, Marmite, Raleigh bikes and the balti. And that’s not all: music, fashion, sport – almost every domain of contemporary life has been reinvented and remoulded in the stoically self-effacing lands squeezed between the self-mythologising South and the narcissistic North. Why, we even have the Midlands to thank for the modern idea of sex. Join Robert Shore on a fascinating, and very funny, journey to the heart of our great nation.

A non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art. How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark... How do you get at one of the world’s most powerful governments by smashing an old vase? How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today's global multi-billion dollar art world? This graphic novel answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works. Against a backdrop of armed conflict and rapid societal change, this book tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchamp’s repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelan’s taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: canned excrement, a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood. The story moves from Paris to New York and London, and then captures the geographical spread of a rapidly globalizing cultural scene by jumping to events in Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Beijing, and culminating in Miami – and in the ether, everywhere and nowhere, on the internet. Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet or inspire each other across the generations and decades. Over a period of 100 years everything changes – and yet the cry of ‘It’s not art!’ never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions – and inspire anew.

From revelation to creation: play this memory game to learn about twenty-five 'eureka' moments in art history from 1907 to today. Ever pondered the ground-breaking moment an artist came up with a great idea? Epiphany! is a new and exciting twist on the ever-popular memory game. Each pair of cards depicts a different artist epiphany as a split scene, adding extra sophistication to the gameplay. From Picasso's first African art encounter in 1907 to the exhibition that led to the formation of the Guerrilla Girls in 1985, each matching pair will have players paging through the accompanying booklet to learn more about the epiphany.

Just open the box and start some art! Let nothing get in your way...Making art doesn't have to be about technically brilliant painting, sculpting and drawing, or complicated equipment. This is a card deck and booklet of 40 super-simple art activities, each inspired by the actual work of a famous artist, that anyone can do, any time, anywhere, to increase everyday creativity.Always wanted to make your own Andy Warhol inspired video? Only got a minute to make a sculpture? Or looking for simple but meaningful ways of using your cameraphone? Pick a card, follow the simple instructions contained within it, and let your creativity flow!The emphasis of each activity is on making art accessible and to understand the simple joy of straightforward creative acts. Open the box and get going...

King of Pop Art Andy Warhol is one of the greatest artists of all time. Rarely venturing into public without his camera and tape recorder, Warhol was a great observer and documentarist of the American social scene.Somewhere within the iconic images, carefully-made personae, star-studded milieu, million-dollar price tags and famous quotes lies the real Andy Warhol. But who was he?With Andy Warhol,Robert Shore unfolds the multi-dimensional Warhol, dissecting his existence as undisputed art-world hotshot, recreating the amazing circle that surrounded him, and tracing his path to stardom back through his early career and his awkward and unusual youth. After Warhol, nothing would be the same - he changed art forever. Find out how with his remarkable story.'Lives of the Artists' is a new series of brief artists biographies from Laurence King Publishing. The series takes as its inspiration Giorgio Vasari's five-hundred-year-old masterwork, updating it with modern takes on the lives of key artists past and present. Focusing on the life of the artist rather than examining their work, each book also includes key images illustrating the artist's life.

'I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland' Yayoi KusamaNonagenarian Japanese artist is simultaneously one of the most famous and most mysterious artists on the planet. A wild child of the 1950s and 1960s, she emerged out of the international Fluxus movement to launch naked happenings in New York and went on to become a doyenne of that city's counter-cultural scene. In the early 1970s, she returned to Japan and by 1977 had checked herself in to a psychiatric hospital which has remained her home to this day. But, though she was removed from the world, she was definitely not in retirement. Her love and belief in the polka dot has given birth to some of the most surprising and inspiring installations and paintings of the last four decades - and made her exhibitions the most visited of any single living artist.