Burglar Alarm Britain

Art World Issue 1

My name is Vici MacDonald and, when not photographing burglar alarms, I have pursued a freelance career as a magazine art director and a writer on art, design and popular culture. Most recently, I was the founding editor, along with Steve Bush, of the UK / Australian art magazine Art World (2007–2009). However after two intense years of both editing and designing the increasingly successful UK edition – and getting to work with some of the world’s top writers and artists (Michel Houellebecq and Jeff Koons, to name just two) along the way – we lost our funding at the height of the crash, and ceased publication. I decided to use the unexpected leisure time to do some things I really wanted to, one of which – strange as it may seem – was to publish my collection of burglar alarm photos, which is where you find yourself now.

Rosalie Gascoigne book

Prior to editing Art World, the thing I’m most proud of is being author of a  monograph on the late Australian sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999), renowned for her poetic use of found type. I was privileged to spend many days interviewing this intensely private woman just a couple of years before her death. She was in her early 80s at the time, but was still full of energy and doing some of her best, most elegiac work. She was an inspirational figure, especially for late starters, as she didn’t exhibit professionally until the age of 53, having raised a family first. She’s not really known in the UK, but she’s very famous in the antipodes, and a fantastic artist – the book (Rosalie Gascoigne, Regaro, 1998) sold out long ago, but you can read more about her here and see example images here.

With my art hat on I also write a Tumblr blog called Art Anorak, which mixes art maps and guides with typo-psycho-geography; and for the soundbite version, I tweet as @artanorak. Maybe catch you there…