Steve Edwards – författare

The Black Country is a region in central England. The locals there speak in a dialect of English that other English speakers can find difficult to understand. This book lists many of the words and phrases used by Black Country Folk and translates them into standard English.

The first sustained critical examination of a work by Martha Rosler that bridged the concerns of conceptual art with those of political documentary.

In The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems (1974–1975) Martha Rosler bridged the concerns of conceptual art with those of political documentary. The work, a series of twenty-one black-and-white photographs, twenty-four text panels and three blank panels, embraces the codes of the photo-text experiments of the late 1960s and applies them to the social reality of New York''s Lower East Side. The prevailing critical view of The Bowery focuses on its implicit rejection, or critique, of established modes of documentary. In this illustrated, extended essay on the work by Rosler, Steve Edwards argues that although the critical attitude towards documentary is an important dimension of the piece, it does not exhaust the meaning of the project.

Edwards situates the work in relation to debates and practices of the period, especially conceptual art and the emergence of the photo-text paradigm exemplified by the work of Robert Smithson, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Hans Haacke, Victor Burgin, and the Women and Work group. In particular, he contextualizes Rosler''s work of this period within the politicized San Diego group (which included, in addition to Rosler, Allan Sekula, Fred Lonidier, and Philip Steinmetz). Comparing The Bowery to Rosler''s later video vital statistics of a citizen, simply obtained (1977) and the films of the Dziga-Vertov Group (formed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin), Edwards shows how the work engages with conceptual art and the neo-avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s.

The public thinks he''s a motorcycle cop, but he''s a civilian, and an inexperienced rider at that. This new job as a police motorcycle escort for funeral processions is the best job he''s ever had, affording him respect and dignity that has so far eluded him. But can he make ends meet, pursuing his interest in bikes and cemeteries, leading to a better life? A colorful cast of characters help and hinder in his struggle to find meaning as they deliver the hearse and the deceased on its final journey to the grave. With constant reflections on mortality and a distinct sense of humor, Edwards tells his story with unflinching honesty and insight.