What might have been an unstable mix of essays and reviews on a variety of art forms—dance, film, fashion, and painting—instead coalesces into a thematically sound and richly varied collection. Critic Hollander (Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress, 1994) knows how to link subjects—even those that seem to bear little or no relation to one another—by isolating underlying themes and teasing them to the legible surface. Which is not to say that she manipulates her material; she simply remains true to her priorities as a critic. And her work benefits. In this latest collection, Hollander takes pains to assert that artists are increasingly working in mediums that reflect movement. Well, maybe, but her assertion functions largely as an excuse to indulge her own abiding fascination with clothing, costuming, and the intersection between artist and physical environment. Those obsessions seem reason enough to group these pieces together, especially since they’re all imbued with Hollander’s intellectualism. Expert and deeply informed, she examines fellow authors’ work with considerable thoroughness—reading her can feel like eavesdropping on a passionate, if somewhat biased, debate. In her review of Mark Anderson’s book Kafka’s Clothes, she lauds his ability to combine serious literary criticism with a discussion of 19th-century attire. “Clothes have always made useful literary metaphor (language is the dress of thought and so on),” she writes, “they have also offered a useful descriptive device for most novelists, however surreal their vision.” Thus Gregor Samsa, “the fearsome beetle, clad in his functional carapace,” becomes “the new-made Modern Artist.” This contact point at which the artist’s very body meets the outer world—and is mediated by clothing or costuming—always sparks Hollander’s interest. And she brings a vital freshness and droll sense of humor to subjects that seem possibly trite, like the wearing of black, androgynous fashions, even tight-lacing corsets. While Hollander’s intellectualism may verge on the academic, her passion for exploring the symbolism of art and clothing is anything but.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-28201-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Film historian Bergan (The United Artists Story, not reviewed) contributes a warm and intelligent new biography of the great French filmmaker to the celebration of the centennial of his birth this fall. The son of Pierre Auguste Renoir, the Impressionist painter, Jean (18941979) became one of his father's favorite subjects not long after his birth. His youth was idyllic, protected by a loving family. Particularly in the early chapters dealing with Renoir's childhood, Bergan skillfully finds a tone akin to that of the director's films: gently meandering, loving, and good-humored, with more than a hint of melancholy. He meticulously relates Renoir's life to his work, showing how such experiences as a youthful first encounter with a puppet theater and wartime service in the trenches and as an airborne observer were later put to use in his films. Like Renoir, Bergan is scrupulously honest in depicting his characters, offering balanced portraits of the director's first wife, the pampered, self-regarding actress Catherine Hessling; his frequent collaborator, the sometimes temperamental actor Jean Gabin; and a series of Hollywood producers who blighted the years during which WW II forced Renoir to work in America. The author also offers discriminating, if brief, critical commentary on all of Renoir's films; he is enthusiastic, but his analyses are thoughtful and generally on the mark. On the downside, as Renoir's filmmaking career begins to slow down after his trilogy of mid-'50s masterpieces—The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and ElÇna et les Hommes—the narrative becomes somewhat perfunctory. One wishes that Bergan had continued to lavish on readers the details in which earlier sections of the book revel. One also hopes that some smart publisher will bring out English-language editions of Renoir's letters and novellas, still unpublished in the US. A charming work that successfully and lovingly evokes the world of one of the cinema's true giants.
Pub Date: Aug. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-87951-537-6
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
When New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art decided that, in addition to all those clunky suits of medieval armor and stodgy Egyptian sarcophagi, it might make sense to admit, say, some pictures of soup cans and other contemporary works into its hallowed galleries, it called upon Henry Geldzahler. Geldzahler, in fact, went on to play a major role in the institutionalization of what had previously been artistic heresy. Among the figures he talks with and about in this collage of interviews and essays from the 1960s to the present are Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Roy Lichtenstein. He also elaborates on the mechanics of acquiring a museum collection and describes his first viewing of the work of Francesco Clemente, which literally knocked him off his feet.
Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1994
ISBN: 0-9627987-6-2
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Turtle Point
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
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