Description
Amid the heady rebellion of London's Young British Artists, Rabble Stone, a photographer, meets the artist, a painter, after renting a room in her Brixton home. Soon Rabble is in thrall to this new world: to the run-down glamour of the Victorian house; to the exhilarating and debauched gallery openings, and to those in the artist's orbit, beautiful and lost. Above all, she is drawn to her new friend's work; raw, unfiltered self-portraits of startling intimacy, which Rabble captures in her uncompromising photographs. But as Rabble's longing tips into obsession, her pursuit of the artist - her fame, her wealth, her life - threatens to consume her. Travelling from London to Algiers, to Berlin and New York, Exhibition is a story of love, ego and destruction, and the dark relationship between authenticity and celebrity, artist and muse.
A charged novel that delves into the intense friendship between an artist and her muse in the London art scene of the 1990s.
About the Author
ALEX HYDE is an Associate Professor at University College London. Her first novel Violets, a fictional reimagining of her father's story, was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and shortlisted for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. She lives with her family in South London.
Reviews
Sharp, vivid, compelling: a love letter to the last identifiable scene in British Art that captures the energy, grit and luxury and hunger of 90s London -- Lizzy Stewart * author of Alison *
A brilliant, daring novel, about art and devotion and infatuation. I love the way Hyde sneakily inserts well-known artworks into her fiction. But most of all I love the hypnotic rhythm of the language, laced so skilfully with internal rhyme -- Sara Baume * author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither *
Alex Hyde never wastes a word, but her sparing language conjures up a visually rich world in which she explores the complexities of female friendship across boundaries of class, success and creativity -- Caroline Walker
At once tough-as-nails and brittle, unflinching and tender, the formidable characters that inhabit the pages of Exhibition come to life vividly through Alex Hyde's crisp and elegant writing. This exquisite book will stay with me for a long time -- Melanie Vandenbrouck
A thoroughly enjoyable read, the style of writing makes it pacy, I loved making the connections and recognising the artworks and artists I know, as well as a sideways reference to myself, as a tramp at an opening! -- Gavin Turk
A short, sharp shock of a novel: Exhibition is a vivid portrait of two artists as young women that plunges us into their mutual obsession and creative co-dependency with a charged, poetic force. In allowing us to peer through her unique lens, Hyde tears up the traditional artist-muse boundary and prompts us to ask enduring questions about class, gender, and the art world. I loved it -- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Exhibition is precise and poised - simultaneously unsettling, obsessive and vulnerable. For anybody first-generation in the arts, Hyde perfectly pinpoints that mapless sense of being adrift in the artworld - the discovery of art as a tool, a hiding place, a language of desire - in all its grit and hunger -- Anthony Shapland
Intense... In spare, compelling prose [Exhibition] captures the fever of the exploding Young British Artists scene, as well as the complex dynamics of attraction, possession and competition... Hyde deftly explores friendship, fame and the ambiguities of artistic collaboration and ownership * Bookseller *
With sharp, surgically lyrical prose Hyde captures the intoxicating and obsessive nature of what it is to make art. She paints portraits of characters, an artworld and a time which are captivating and viscerally real. It pulses with life, a perfect snapshot of the energies that drove the most electrifying period in British art. At its heart a relationship that speaks to the destructive desires that underpin and can undermine creative friendships. It places us into the space of what it is to see and be seen, with all the uncomfortable ramifications around who controls that gaze. A rare and sparkling achievement. A gift of a novel -- Tom de Freston
A gift of a novel. With sharp, surgically lyrical prose Hyde captures the intoxicating and obsessive nature of what it is to make art. A perfect snapshot of the energies that drove the most electrifying period in British art -- Tom de Freston
Book Information
ISBN 9781803514130
Author Alex Hyde
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Granta Books
Publisher Granta Books
A charged novel that delves into the intense friendship between an artist and her muse in the London art scene of the 1990s.
About the Author
ALEX HYDE is an Associate Professor at University College London. Her first novel Violets, a fictional reimagining of her father's story, was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and shortlisted for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. She lives with her family in South London.
Reviews
Sharp, vivid, compelling: a love letter to the last identifiable scene in British Art that captures the energy, grit and luxury and hunger of 90s London -- Lizzy Stewart * author of Alison *
A brilliant, daring novel, about art and devotion and infatuation. I love the way Hyde sneakily inserts well-known artworks into her fiction. But most of all I love the hypnotic rhythm of the language, laced so skilfully with internal rhyme -- Sara Baume * author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither *
Alex Hyde never wastes a word, but her sparing language conjures up a visually rich world in which she explores the complexities of female friendship across boundaries of class, success and creativity -- Caroline Walker
At once tough-as-nails and brittle, unflinching and tender, the formidable characters that inhabit the pages of Exhibition come to life vividly through Alex Hyde's crisp and elegant writing. This exquisite book will stay with me for a long time -- Melanie Vandenbrouck
A thoroughly enjoyable read, the style of writing makes it pacy, I loved making the connections and recognising the artworks and artists I know, as well as a sideways reference to myself, as a tramp at an opening! -- Gavin Turk
A short, sharp shock of a novel: Exhibition is a vivid portrait of two artists as young women that plunges us into their mutual obsession and creative co-dependency with a charged, poetic force. In allowing us to peer through her unique lens, Hyde tears up the traditional artist-muse boundary and prompts us to ask enduring questions about class, gender, and the art world. I loved it -- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Exhibition is precise and poised - simultaneously unsettling, obsessive and vulnerable. For anybody first-generation in the arts, Hyde perfectly pinpoints that mapless sense of being adrift in the artworld - the discovery of art as a tool, a hiding place, a language of desire - in all its grit and hunger -- Anthony Shapland
Intense... In spare, compelling prose [Exhibition] captures the fever of the exploding Young British Artists scene, as well as the complex dynamics of attraction, possession and competition... Hyde deftly explores friendship, fame and the ambiguities of artistic collaboration and ownership * Bookseller *
With sharp, surgically lyrical prose Hyde captures the intoxicating and obsessive nature of what it is to make art. She paints portraits of characters, an artworld and a time which are captivating and viscerally real. It pulses with life, a perfect snapshot of the energies that drove the most electrifying period in British art. At its heart a relationship that speaks to the destructive desires that underpin and can undermine creative friendships. It places us into the space of what it is to see and be seen, with all the uncomfortable ramifications around who controls that gaze. A rare and sparkling achievement. A gift of a novel -- Tom de Freston
A gift of a novel. With sharp, surgically lyrical prose Hyde captures the intoxicating and obsessive nature of what it is to make art. A perfect snapshot of the energies that drove the most electrifying period in British art -- Tom de Freston
Book Information
ISBN 9781803514130
Author Alex Hyde
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Granta Books
Publisher Granta Books
