A sweeping survey and fervent defense of the value of art in modern life.
How artists respond to and influence our world.
In this follow-up to How To Be an Artist, Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, celebrates the works of several dozen artists, most of whose careers fall within the last half-century. The author also offers extended reflections on the commercial dynamics of the art world and his own career as an artist and critic. The book, which includes many of his previously published writings from the late 1990s until the present, is divided into sections based on three recent watershed moments in American history—9/11 and the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump—and their intersections with the art world. Saltz consistently frames his consideration of particular artists in relation to these events or the broader political climate they helped form, and he makes a persuasive case that we might profitably interpret contemporary history through—and find profound consolation and spiritual guidance in—the creations of gifted visual artists. Among the artists the author champions are prominent figures such as Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Willem de Kooning as well as lesser-known ones such as David Wojnarowicz, Laurel Nakadate, Dana Schutz, Katherine Bernhardt, and Joseph E. Yoakum. Saltz is particularly attentive to those artists who are “revisiting and reinventing cultural norms enforced by five hundred years of colonialism,” and he provides trenchant commentary on the racial and gender politics of the contemporary art world. At his best, his discussions of individual works are informed, illuminating, and accessible, as in his lengthy treatment of Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa and its enduring aesthetic power. Saltz also covers an assortment of related topics, including the politics of auction culture, the paintings of George W. Bush, the cave drawings at Niaux, and the evolving censorship practices of Facebook and Instagram.
A sweeping survey and fervent defense of the value of art in modern life.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08649-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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