Andrew Logan An Artistic Adventure is a beautifully produced art book, packed with full-page color photographs of the international life and work of Andrew Logan. (I resisted the urge to rip the photos out of the book, frame them, and hang them on my walls!). Philip Hughes, the director of The Ruthin Craft Center, the publisher of the book, wrote the brilliant trailer. The illustrious art critic Lady Marina Vaizey wrote the Introduction, and the reverential text is provided by Fennah Podschies.

Andrew Logan, who was a student at the Oxford School of Architecture in the early 1960s, deserves reverence. He is an iconoclastic artist who has been working prolifically in a wide spectrum of ‘artistic media’ including sculpture, portraiture, and jewelry since the early 1970s.

Everything is a fantasy for him. He has snatched a dream out of nowhere, his cloud-covered towers and beautiful palaces are built with everything you and I have thrown away … He should be the most revered artist who has made no distinction between his life and his art. , ‘is an apt description of the late Derek Jarman, a friend and collaborator, who once lived in a study on Andrew’s former home in Butler’s Wharf, before his building caught fire in 1979.

Over the years, Andrew has collaborated with global artists like Brian Eno, and his list of admiring patrons seems like a Who’s Who list. The late HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Bono, Julie Christie, Anita Pallenberg are just some of her followers. Andrew Logan’s work has been exhibited around the world, including the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, the Flower East Gallery in London, the Victoria & Art Museum, the Hayward Gallery, Bonhams, the National Portrait Gallery, Sotheby’s in London, the Royal Academy of Arts and Somerset House.

Andrew is also famous for his Miss Alternative World pageants, which he has been running since 1972.

“A surreal art event for general family entertainment” is how he describes them.

Some of the biggest names in fashion, the arts and the media have participated, either as contestants or as judges. David Hockney has been a judge on more than one occasion.

“The art of the costumes of those present and the public was wide and often amazing, and since then some have become famous and notorious,” says the chronicler of the book.

His first contest was held in one of his old London studios, a converted puzzle factory on Downham Road in Hackney in which he himself played the role of host and hostess. Since then, there have been eleven Miss Alternative World pageants, including the fourth held in a tent on Clapham Common in 1978. The late actor Divine was one of the presenters, and the judges, including Lionel Bart and Joan Bakewell, were jailed. in a cage.

“The orthodox world in which I live threatens the free spirits who on these occasions let the indignation of a million matrons tear with exuberance and joy … it is like walking through a gallery of brilliant art objects, each enjoying each one. Brightest of all – Andrew Logan: creator, magician, puppetmaster, promoter of choice, ‘recalls Bakewell.

The resulting Miss World Alternative film, directed by Richard Gayer, premiered at Odeon Leicester Square and Cannes. She was also infamous for receiving a court order from the organizers of the annual Miss World beauty pageant. The case was dismissed by the judge, Lord Denning, who said that no one was likely to confuse the two facts. The lawyer in the case was Tony Blair, who became Prime Minister of Great Britain!

The chapters of the book are dedicated to Logan’s existence as an original and eccentric artist. Alternative Miss World events are recorded with photographic details, as is her celebrity portraits of icons like Elizabeth Taylor, her close friend, Zandra Rhodes, and Maria Callas. George Melly described his unique glass jewelery, often decorated with incongruous glued objects, as “the Fabergé of the eighties.”

‘The mirror of the universe has been my life for thirty years. It has an energy like no other material. The humble grain of sand turns into glamorous glass, ”says Andrew, explaining his obsession with working with glass.

‘Andrew Logan works as a sculptor and emcee in a world of artistic adventures; in this constructed universe, like Lewis Carroll’s alternative, the unexpectedly great meets the infinitely small, and the suspension of faith is rewarded with extraordinary surprises, ”is just one of the profound quotes in the book.

At the end of the book, there are several pages dedicated to Andrew’s wide circle of fascinating friends entitled “Gods and Goddesses”, most of whom have been circling his orbit for years.

So, drool over the stunning color photographs of her one-of-a-kind jewelry and gaze at her life-size sculptures, several of which are on display in her extraordinary home, The Glasshouse Studio, designed by Michael Davis, her partner. One of Andrew’s best-known sculptures is Pegasus: A Monument to Hope (1980 with ‘subsequent interpretations and editions through 2008’). He first conceived the idea for Pegasus, which years later led to the making of this series of sculptures, when he was an 11-year-old boy. Obsessed with Greek and Roman myths, his imagination was ignited by the winged white horse that sprouted from the severed neck of the Gorgon, killed by the hero Perseus. Wings have continued to be a theme in Andrew’s work, first manifesting itself in the early broken mirror sculptures of birds. Andrew Logan has often said that during the creation process, he felt that he was “a tool, that Pegasus symbolized a bridge between the physical and spiritual dimensions, and that the winged horse and its message of hope belonged to the world.” In fact, Pegasus: A Monument of Hope was the first sculpture Andrew Logan made after the fire in the Butler’s Wharf studio. Since then, he has created a new Pegasus every decade.

Although you can still get the full impact of Andrew Logan An Artistic Adventure without reading the words, the text plays a vital role in understanding Andrew’s work and life. But it is the exquisite photographs that really help make this brilliant art book the definitive one of England’s most individual and eccentric artist. He is such a prolific creator, I am sure this interesting book will be the first of his many retrospectives to come.

Copyright: 2008