As a result of Arnatt’s participation in the 1991 Bienal de São Paulo, Visual Arts mounted a new touring exhibition of colour photographs by this senior British artist. Arnatt made his reputation in the 1960s, when he used the camera to record his work activities as a sculptor – most famously in the Self Burial series of 1969 when he enacted his own death as a response to the notion that ‘art is dead’. By the 1980s his attention turned towards the immediate environment, specifically urban detritus. Rummaging through rubbish tips, Arnatt collected banal or trivial objects, such as children’s toys or empty carrier bags, which were taken home to be photographed in natural daylight. A later series employed discarded paint cans, house bricks and paint-encrusted industrial gloves, all which were reproduced large-scale to reflect the slick and glossy quality of commercial advertising. A richly illustrated catalogue, with an introductory essay by Mark Haworth-Booth, Keeper of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London accompanied the exhibition. (ISBN 0 86355 144 0)

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