Derek Jarman

The book highlights in particular Jarman's artistic practice from the period 1986-1993. During these years, his virulent paintings made on front pages of homophobic newspapers engage in dialogue with assemblages of found objects around his garden refuge at Prospect Cottage and some of its most powerful film experiments. Bringing together commissioned essays to international art critics and academics, devoted to aspects specific – and sometimes little-known – aspects of his life and work, as well as generous portfolios covering his successive periods, this monograph offers an overview of Derek Jarman's creative singularity. Rage and beauty, emotion and attention to detail, the harshness of reality and the pleasures of fiction, romanticism and activism, queer affirmation and passion for Shakespeare, a taste for flowers, books and colours: such is the fullness of the world of an artist who affirmed that "the goal of art is to awaken the dreams that lie dormant within us." Those of Derek Jarman, always alive today, continue to be transmitted. With essays and contributions from Laetitia Chauvin, Fiona Corridan, Simon Fisher Turner, Philip Hoare, Gerald Incandela, Claire Le Restif, Elisabeth Lebovici, Cy Lecerf Maulpoix, James Mackay, Marco Martella, Jon Savage, Tilda Swinton and Simon Watney. Published following Derek Jarman's exhibition Dead Souls Whisper (1986-1993) at the Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, in 2021.