Launched at lunch on Sunday 27th November, More is Plenty is a limited edition monograph on multimedia artist Kurt Brereton's work since the mid-1970's, edited by Adelaide art critic and poet Ken Bolton. Contributions include an introductory essay by the editor and essays by George Alexander, Anne Howell, Arnie Goldman, Diana Wood-Conroy, Edward Dore and other art writers.

The book is beautifully produced (in square format) with many full colour images of the work and photographs of performances, installations, works in progress and the artist's family.

It publishes the brilliant Pathetic Manifesto compiled between the years 1997 to 2000, and culminating in 2006 in an artist's talk at Project Contemporary Artspace in Wollongong - Patheticism - A Report from the Illawarra Frontline. Consisting of 46 short statements this discursive talk/manifesto outlines the concerns of contemporary artists who celebrate failure, immorality, style-free art and who have no interest in the romantic abject or sublime.





Kurt Brereton's notes on Patheticism -
• attempts to synthesize disparate accounts of pathos and the pathetic.
• indicates a desire to move beyond the bounds of irony via an unapologetic occupancy of a position which is from the outset acknowledged to be untenable in any heroic sense yet very human.
•ethos of empathy, the democracy of failure, and any other excesses of hyper-individual introspection (from any era).



Some of the reproductions of the paintings -


                        Dreamhome, No 6, 2007


                         Tagging the Escarpment, 2007

For more on this diverse work and info on how to buy More Is Plenty visit Kurt's web site here

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