The ever voluble Hughes tackles 350 years of history with irony and gusto in this eminently readable handbook on American art. We live in a country shaped by colonization and immigration. This means, Hughes argues, that America will always bear a troubled relationship to its history, striving to sublimate alien feelings (and guilt) by fixating on ``identity, origins, and the past, or by the faith in newness as a value in itself.'' The roots of this faith, and of America's cultural production, remain wrapped around a Puritan bedrock, laid with the zealous intention of turning New England into the New Israel. This sense of a spiritual quest, of a constant attempt to transcend the past, surfaces repeatedly in America's great landscape painting, as well as in Jackson Pollock's action paintings, while the Puritanical distrust of the craven image haunts the spartan nature of Minimalism. But after centuries of rich, varied, and fruitful history, Hughes holds, Ronald Reagan's reign had a unique (and calamitous) impact, transforming the world of art into ``the artworld'' as trillions of fictive dollars circulated, producing as an offshoot numbers of status- seeking collectors. The rarity of old pictures, matched with a demand for art, prompted greedy dealers to mine the slew of students being churned out of the art schools, inflating and discarding premature talents. On the heels of that circus, Hughes sees American art on the decline, a thin, wheezing steam pump desperately trying to recycle past successes in order to make a buck. His readings of three centuries of both art works and trends are lively, detailed, and persuasive (though perhaps a bit too harsh regarding recent art), and his ultimately pessimistic take is expressed with great clarity. A meaty and illuminating excavation, full of vigor and punch, to accompany a spring PBS series. (330 illustrations and photos, not seen) (First printing of 100,000)
Pub Date: April 30, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-42627-2
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
A general introduction to the life and work of photojournalist Lange that draws on family remembrances, scholarly evaluations, and a handsome picture portfolio. Six essays, one interview, and a healthy black-and-white picture section make up this composite introduction to Lange (18951965), best known for her US Farm Security Administration images of Depression-era migrant workers. Editor Partridge grew up in Lange's loosely knit family fold (her father worked as an assistant), and her warm introduction details the tension between Lange's motherly impulses and her irascible nature. In a 1976 interview, Ansel Adams comments on shared technical hardships, Lange's marriage to activist Paul Taylor, and her ``absolute sexless beauty.'' Roger Daniels (History/Univ. of Chicago) looks at Lange's work documenting Japanese Americans interned by the War Relocation Authority during WW II. And an incisive essay by Sally Stein (Art History/Univ. of California, Irvine) discusses Lange's fascination with bodily depictions (she had been crippled by childhood polio and was dogged by lifelong physical infirmities). Most telling, though, are the photographs themselves. One from 1937, taken at a sharecropper's cabin in Coahoma County, Miss., shows only a black woman's bare feet in the foreground, poised elegantly one atop the other on the dusty and worn boards of a front porch. Another, from 1938, records campaign posters taped to a Waco, Tex., gas station window. The sternly optimistic faces of the candidates surround painted sign lettering that reads: ``Washing/Greasing/Storage.'' Both images are blunt and literal, relying on secondary association for political or allegorical impact. Later photographs draw from Lange's extensive world travels. In all, this is a limited and general introduction to Lange's life and work. It piques curiosity but leaves a lot of rich material unexamined. Still, this compendium is respectfully assembled and nicely documented. (Partridge has produced a companion film to accompany the book.)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56098-350-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
A provocative exploration of how African-Americans have, and more often have not, participated in the creation of their image through photographs. Merely ``to illuminate'' is Willis's (Black Photographs 19401988, not reviewed) stated purpose in this collection of essays. The contributors seek to ``direct outward'' the gaze that historically has been directed at them. Some of these pieces (each inspired by a photograph selected by the writer) are intimate and highly personal: Edward P. Jones concludes that, if he'd met his mother as the stylish young woman she was on the day she had her picture taken, he'd have advised her to choose a life without him and his father (``Save yourself, I would have told her''); LisÇ Hamilton examines her feelings of rejection by her white mother and grandmother. Addressing a variety of subjects—from the stereotypical portrayal of black men as criminals and black women as poverty-stricken mothers with too many children, to the hegemony of ``good'' hair—these pieces provide a historical base from which to view the depiction of African-Americans in today's media. The subjects of the photographs range from two lynched men and an ancestor labeled ``¨N, ¨I, ´W'' (one-quarter Negro, one-quarter Indian, one-half White), to a variety of family snapshots. The juxtaposition of these images and histories magnifies the close intertwining of family and cultural history. Moving beyond mere explanations of the photographs, these essays lead the reader to question assumptions about what is being seen, how images are created, and for whose consumption they are produced. Angela Davis documents her lack of agency over her image and explains that 25 years after her trial what she is remembered for is not her politics but her Afro (Vibe magazine recently ran a '70s nostalgic fashion spread that termed Davis ``a fashion revolutionary''). A startling, revealing look at photographic representation and its effect on African-American identity and consciousness.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56584-107-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
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