A largely sympathetic portrait of the recently deceased young artist whose works moved from the subway platforms of N.Y.C. to the walls of galleries and museums throughout the world. Using the form of interviews with Haring himself as well as with the hustlers and hangers-on, the con men and collectors, the celebrities and sycophants who formed his world, Gruen (Eric Bruhn, 1979, etc.) paints a vivid picture of pop culture in the 1980's. Haring's recounting of his own adventures forms the backbone of the book. He is remarkably frank about his gay life (he died of AIDS at the age of 31), his impatience for fame, his dissatisfaction with the art establishment. Augmenting these revelations are reminiscences by such fellow artists as Kenny Scharf and Roy Lichtenstein, art dealers Leo Castelli and Tony Shafrazi, such cult figures as Madonna and Yoko Ono, as well as Timothy Leary and William Burroughs. Even Princess Caroline of Monaco has a bit to add. It's a glittering roster, and Gruen organizes their diverse points of view with clarity and care. Few dissenting voices are heard, however, and the tone becomes nearly hagiographic. Had Gruen approached some of Haring's detractors—and there are many—the portrait would have been fuller. An occasional note of self-serving creeps in as well, as when Timothy Leary states, ``Keith and I [have] been swept by the waves of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century.'' Still, Leary does have the grace to admit that Haring ``is not Mother Teresa.'' Some readers may also be puzzled by the seeming disparity between Haring's insistence that his work is ``for the people'' and his unremitting name-dropping of the glitterati. Limited, but nonetheless a valuable overview of an 80's phenomenon and his world. (Thirty-two b&w and 105 color photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1991
ISBN: 0-13-516113-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
An impressive array of 14 essays (most reprinted from scholarly journals) on aspects of African-Americanism, ranging in theme from black nationalism to the writings of Herman Melville— and spanning a quarter-century of the author's impressive career (History and Religious Studies/UC Riverside; Slave Culture, 1987, etc.). Stuckey's collection—which is as much about prominent movements in the African-American experience as about specific individuals—begins and ends with considerations of ``the black ethos'' as reflected in music: The opening essay treats the slave experience through work songs and spirituals, while the concluding (and title) piece offers an unusual approach by viewing the civil- rights movement through the music its leaders used to keep it alive. The history of black nationalist and emigrationist thought also figures prominently, from its first manifestations in the early 19th century and Henry Garnet's antebellum African Civilization Society to later forms of the same desire for liberation in the thinking of W.E.B. DuBois and his contemporaries. Melville's remarkable Benito Cereno—with its depiction of a slave- ship mutiny based on an actual occurrence—is the subject of two analyses as Stuckey explores the author's considerable understanding of African culture, and the towering figure of Paul Robeson in black cultural history is similarly honored. Frederick Douglass and Denmark Vesey, with their own striking contributions to that history, are among the many other prominent African- Americans noted, giving ample evidence of both the breadth and the complexity of black expression and experience. Meticulous and well researched: a solid tribute to black culture in America that might well ignite sparks of interest in a new generation of historians and artists.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-19-507677-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
Graham-Dixon, the art critic for the British newspaper the Independent, notes in the introduction to this collection of his terse critiques of museum exhibits and gallery shows that they were written not ``for posterity but for tomorrow's newspaper.'' That makes them more, rather than less, impressive: Whether discussing Egon Schiele's disturbing nudes, CÇzanne's turbulent apprenticeship, Claude Lorrain's ``radiant, melancholy'' landscapes, the ``graceless, scurrilous, irreverent'' late art of Picasso, or the ideology of nationalism and hygiene shaping Vermeer's paintings, Graham-Dixon is exact and persuasive. He renders the specifics of a work of art with great precision (and, often, sympathy), and matches the specifics with short, deft passages on each artist's background, tastes, intentions, and career. He doesn't mind sharing his enthusiasms, is witty without ever seeming jaded, and can usually find a metaphor or image to nicely sum up the particular impact of a work of art. The hasty origins of the pieces sometimes intrudes; there's little room for documenting assertions. Nonetheless, this is a stimulating, often surprising debut collection. (83 photos, 4 pages color illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-45520-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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