Since the 1960s contemporary art has overturned the accepted historical categorizations of what constitutes art, who creates it, and how it is represented and validated. This guide brings the subject right up-to-date, exploring the notion of ‘contemporary’ and what it means in the present as well as how it came about.

Curator and writer Natalie Rudd explains the many aspects of contemporary art, from its backstory to today, including different approaches, media and recurring themes. Each chapter addresses a core question, explored via an accessible narrative and supported by an analysis of six relevant works.

Rudd also looks at the role of the art market and its structures, including art fairs and biennales and how these have developed since the millennium; the expanded role of the contemporary artist as personality; how artists are untangling historical and contemporary narratives to expose inequalities; the ethics of making; and the potential for art to improve the world and effect political change. A ‘toolkit’ section offers advice on how to interpret contemporary art and where to access it.

Offering a more multi-narrative and international perspective, this guide discusses what motivates artists as they try to make sense of the world, and their place within it.

We are both painters. We can connect to each other through images, in our own unvoiced language. But I will try and reach you with words. Through talking to you I may come alive and begin to speak.

Celia Paul has felt a lifelong connection to the artist Gwen John. There are extraordinary parallels in their lives and work. Both have always made art on their own terms. Both were involved with older male artists. Both worked hard to keep themselves and the sacred flame of their creativity from being extinguished by others.

Letters to Gwen John is Paul’s imagined correspondence with Gwen John, whose life and work have loomed so large in hers. These intimate, passionate, haunting letters allow Paul to reach across eras, to weigh up the sacrifices she has made, and to explore the rich possibilities of a life apart. With illuminating insights into the life and work of Gwen John, Letters to Gwen John is a unique form of memoir and conversation, and an unforgettable insight into a life devoted to making art.

Step into the colourful world of the Little Artist Boy. Linger for some time. Not too long mind, he has things to be getting on with. Whether you’re in the clutches of a bad day or you have a spring in your step from having a good one, you’ll find just what you need in the wise, funny, smart and sensible (but never dull!) words of Little Artist Boy.

In a collection of sassy and wise quotations, he dispenses comfort and advice on all areas of life – from ‘There’s nothing like a game of crazy golf to clear the air’ to the virtues of a smock and beret, to the effortless ‘Stop being a mug’.

‘The first time I opened What Artists Wear, I gasped with pleasure. Imagine it as a kind of punk cousin to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, liberally illustrated with the most astonishing images of artists, decked out in finery or rags … It transported me to somewhere glamorous, exciting, even revolutionary’ Olivia Laing, Guardian

Most of us live our lives in our clothes without realizing their power. But in the hands of artists, garments reveal themselves. They are pure tools of expression, storytelling, resistance and creativity: canvases on which to show who we really are.

In What Artists Wear, style luminary Charlie Porter takes us on an invigorating, eye-opening journey through the iconic outfits worn by artists, in the studio, on stage, at work, at home and at play. From Yves Klein’s spotless tailoring to the kaleidoscopic costumes of Yayoi Kusama and Cindy Sherman; from Andy Warhol’s signature denim to Charlotte Prodger’s casualwear, Porter’s roving eye picks out the magical, revealing details in the clothes he encounters, weaving together a new way of understanding artists, and of dressing ourselves.

Part love letter, part guide to chic, and featuring generous photographic spreads, What Artists Wear is both a manual and a manifesto, a radical, gleeful, inspiration to see the world anew-and find greater pleasure and possibility in the clothes we all wear.

John Piper (1903-1992) is renowned for his extraordinarily diverse practice that embraced landscape, architectural and abstract compositions, as well as his theatre and stage sets for Benjamin Britten and his stained-glass windows. The exhibition at Tate Liverpool is the first to examine Piper’s role in European modernism, presenting major works by Piper alongside selected works by artists including Jean Hélion and Alexander Calder.

The book contains works by Piper including painting, relief, collage and photography and also presents comparative works and information compiling over 70 images. The book is divided into the following sections:

1. Introduction

2. Early Paintings & Drawings

3. Going Abstract

4. Picturesque Landscapes & War Artist

5. The Postwar Landscape

Accompanying the exhibition, this book offers an innovative look at the work of an incredibly versatile artist, evidencing how Piper’s work fused the creation of the European avant-garde with a powerful sensitivity to Britain and its history.