A sophisticated artistic celebration of Blackness.
An art scholar’s reflections on the intersection of race, color, and art.
“Of all the tincts that can fill up a canvas,” Moore emphasizes, “black exudes brilliance.” With a master’s degree in museum studies from Harvard, the Columbia University doctoral candidate in art education has already established himself as one of the most promising young voices in the art world. He expertly balances abstract criticism with pragmatic advice. In this follow-up to his acclaimed guide to art collecting, The Black Market (2020), Moore offers readers astute, thoughtful essays centered around the titular color black and provides logistical advice for Black artists and collectors. Central to the book’s message is a juxtaposition between Western culture’s association of the color white with purity and black with “grief and death.” Although black has long been associated with innocence in African and Asian cultures, these essays aim to challenge Western collectors, critics, and museums, noting, for example, that “White supremacy has…found a warm welcome in museum board seats.” Some pieces move beyond the realm of high art, noting the artistic merit and astute racial commentary found in African American literature, public art, family portraits, and “Visual Albums,” such as Kanye West’s Runaway (2010). The book’s more practical essays provide tips for building a collection, finding mentors in the field, and getting into “the business of art.” Although the wide-ranging nature of the chapters makes for a sometimes-disjointed reading experience at times, each of the essays here offers readers fresh insights into the intersection of art and race. Most importantly, Moore never misses a chance to introduce readers to a wide range of Black artists, from the well known to the up-and-coming. Entire chapters are effectively devoted to “the disruptors” and “the eclectics” who are transforming the art scene in the United States. Overall, this is a learned yet approachable book by an author who’s well versed in art history and theory as well as in the scholarship of W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis, and other Black theorists.
A sophisticated artistic celebration of Blackness.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-955496-23-0
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Petite Ivy Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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