A thorough, engaging, and personal survey of an oft-neglected 20th-century artist.
A biography presents a detailed look at a French artist best known for his collages.
Jacques Villeglé was born in Brittany in 1926. He lived in Nantes during the Nazi occupation, and, after the Liberation in 1944, he moved to Paris. In that city, he liked to roam like a flâneur. His walks turned into a search for something special: posters. Villeglé developed a style in which he tore posters from the streets and rearranged them into something new. His works are full of fragments, letters, and sometimes clear images. They are often named for the streets where the posters were found. The materials were culled from advertisements, political proclamations, and anything else put up for Parisians to see. The book is filled with color photographs of the results, though it is not just about Villeglé’s art. Much is written about his life as well as the time in which he became an artist. He was well acquainted with individuals like Yves Klein and Raymond Hains. Villeglé was in Paris when the American artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg came there in the 1960s. The volume, which includes historical photos, follows Villeglé’s life into the modern day. Conrad creates an intimate feel by often quoting directly from conversations he had with Villeglé, who died in June 2022 in Paris. Villeglé recalled signing a manifesto as part of the newly formed Nouveaux Réalistes art movement with other artists: “I had some misgivings about the whole thing.” With high-quality images, the engrossing book also allows close inspection of the art itself. In Rue de Vaugirard (Bas-Meudon), from 1991, a vivid mix of numbers, French words, and torn images of people, there is much to uncover simply by looking carefully. But some chapters delve into the mundane. For instance, the author explains how, when Villeglé was in San Francisco, he drove the artist to “the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a museum built in the 1920’s, which is a replica of the Palais de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris.” The anecdote does not yield much intriguing information. Despite such lulls, the volume proves to be an indispensable resource. Even though Villeglé is not a household name, his work and life are skillfully explored here.
A thorough, engaging, and personal survey of an oft-neglected 20th-century artist.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-950301-37-9
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Inkshares
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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