Throughout 2018 I’ve been involved as with a catalogue for MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. Following an expansion project by 6a architects, in close collaboration with artists Gareth Jones and Nils Norman, MK Gallery will reopen in March 2019. The opening show, titled The Lie of the Land, explores how the British landscape was radically transformed by changes in free time and leisure activities. Tracing a line between Capability Brown’s aristocratic gardens at Stowe and the social, urban experiment at neighbouring New Town Milton Keynes, the exhibition teases out the aspirations that underpin our built environments.
The catalogue includes essays by Anthony Spira, MK Gallery’s director, Jane Rendell, Jes Fernie, Owen Hatherley, Tom Emerson, and Cora Gilroy-Ware and Paul Gilroy, which explore aspects of landscape design and urban development, land ownership and access, housing, and how these are all interwoven in Milton Keynes’s history. It contains shorter texts by Claire Louise Staunton, Sam Jacob and Fay Blanchard. The book is designed by Mark El-kathib.
The book is also a ‘proper’ catalogue, with many images of works in the show, accompanied by extended captions. Artists and designers whose work is part of the project include: Edward Alcock, David Alesworth, Archigram, Edwin Beard Budding, John Berger, James Boswell, Boyd & Evans, Thalia Campbell, Canaletto, Philip Castle, Ithell Colquhoun, John Csaky, Jeremy Deller, Sarah Ann Drake, Malcolm Drummond, Susanna Duncombe, Peter Dunn, Tracey Emin, Rose English, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Norman Foster, Elizabeth Frink, William Powell Frith, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Gainsborough, Walter Goodall, Walter Greaves, Richard Hamilton, Emma Hart, Ebenezer Howard, Julius Caesar Ibbetson, Evelyn Grace Ince, Helmut Jacoby, Bob Jardine, Gertrude Jekyll, Gareth Jones, Michael Kirkham, Laura Knight, Mabel Francis Layng, Ann Lee, Loraine Leeson, Lawrence Lek, Linder, Joan Littlewood, Errol Lloyd, Jane Loudon, John Loudon, Laurence Stephen Lowry, Edwin Lutyens, Andrew Mahaddie, Robert Medley, Brian Milne, Henry Moore, William Morris, Marlow Moss, Joseph Nash, Paul Nash, Balthazar Nebot, Nils Norman, Marianne North, Eduardo Paolozzi, Joseph Paxton, Olivia Plender, Ingrid Pollard, Cedric Price, Project Art Works, Jacques Rigaud, Bridget Riley, John Robertson Reid, William Patrick Roberts, John Ruskin, Benton Seeley, Yinka Shonibare MBE, David Shrigley, Alison and Peter Smithson, Jo Spence, Thomas Struth, Superstudio, James Tissot, James Walker Tucker, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John A. Walker, Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, Ed Webb-Ingall, Carel Weight, Stuart Whipps, Rachel Whiteread, Althea Willoughby, Audrey Weber, Stephen Willats, Harold Williamson, John Wootton, James Wyld, John Yeadon.
Gerrie van Noord 