Scott King

Written by British graphic designer Scott King (born 1969) and illustrated by Philadelphia artist Will Henry, this funny, irreverent graphic novel depicts two protagonists of British public art—Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley—attempt to solve Afghanistan's many woes. The astonishing power of public art has long been recognized by both governments and big business alike, with increasingly enormous public sculptures being deployed to "regenerate" ailing post-industrial areas or add "wow factor" to corporate HQ piazzas and ever-expanding airports. What if this strategy were employed in an attempt to turn around the fortunes of an entire country? This book, published in JRP|Ringier's Hapax series, proposes a scenario in which Kapoor and Gormley are commissioned by the United Nations in a last-ditch effort to solve the social, financial and political problems of Afghanistan.

Scott King moves fluidly back and forth between art and design. As Art Director of i-D and Creative Director of Sleazenation magazines (for which he was awarded Best Cover and Best Designed Feature of the Year prizes), King's design work is already well-known around the world. As an artist, King plays fast and loose with twentieth-century icons: in "Brian," for example, a viewer recognizes at a glance Lenin's familiar visage, with the face turned sternly to the side, the moustache plumping his marblesque upper lip, but the face on this white bust bears eye makeup and a hint of blush, and feathers sprout from the neck on either side. ("Lenin as Brian Eno in his early Roxy Music days," King explains.) Often, King's art seems virtually indistinguishable from his design work, as in his maps whose cheerfully colored Marimekko-ish dots represent domestic murders. This monograph is dedicated to the many hats of Scott King, whose work has been exhibited widely in London, New York and European galleries including KW Berlin, Portikus, White Columns, Kunstverein Munich and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

A headlong plunge into the dregs of contemporary human futility, Anxiety and Depression--published in JRP|Ringier's Hapax series--describes, with relentless and clerical rigor, how we live now. Author Scott King has packed this almost anthropological survey with case studies in self-hatred, anxiety and despair, as well as exercises in which the reader can measure his or her daily humiliations.