Ho’s well-documented research will intrigue criminologists—though they may get more value out of the original...
Ho’s book looks at the many different kinds of art thefts, digging deep into the motivations, methodologies and statistics behind the crimes.
Derived from Ho’s dissertation in criminal justice at Rutgers University, this book offers an evidence-based overview of how, why and where art thefts are committed, particularly in the commercial galleries of New York. Ho performed research in the New York Police Department’s Art and Antique Investigation Unit, and much of her statistics are derived from their case files as well as from an extensive survey she conducted onsite at 45 Manhattan galleries. As its subtitle suggests, the book does read as a memoir—in part. In fact, its approach varies fairly evenly among memoir, criminal justice dissertation and a history of art theft, the latter being by far the most successful. Ho’s anecdotes are both thrilling and fascinating; the criminals whose stories she tells—and she tells them well—are simultaneously alluring and repellent characters. One wishes for the same sort of pop-history approach for her treatment of New York galleries—a community that is also full of colorful personalities—but alas, here she has promised confidentiality to her participants. Instead, she offers a fairly dry assembly of demographics and statistics, derived from the survey, about locations of gallery reception desks, insurance policies, number of employees and other details, enlivened by only a few individualized (but still anonymous) incidents. The memoir approach seems to have been a conscious attempt to modify the original dissertation into a sort of gumshoe detective story, but it’s not quite successful. The first-person voice is generally awkward and unnatural—“As my epiphany melted into memory, giddiness transcended into intimidation”—and she uses it inconsistently and misleadingly, giving her narrator dialogue that clearly reflects no remembered conversation but is instead an opportunity to expound on her (admittedly impressive) research.
Ho’s well-documented research will intrigue criminologists—though they may get more value out of the original dissertation—while culture vultures will appreciate the art war stories yet wish for a bit more.Pub Date: June 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1492275893
Page Count: 250
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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