Clever, boldly innovative social commentary.
This debut chapbook of poetry and diagrams offers a caricature of contemporary capitalism.
Lessard’s unconventional work combines absurd poetic statements with technical diagrams resembling Google Patents applications to present an imagined “instrument for distributed empathy monetization.” Readers are given a diagram of the instrument, which is worn in a similar fashion to an oxygen mask. Then an introduction provides a heavily abstract description of the instrument’s inspiration and purpose: “The model is dependent on subject. Subject ingested as data, we begin monetizing in the customer’s voice.” This is followed by a detailed yet poetically abstract summary of the instrument’s various parts: “Fabricast-grade contact (2 cm), electroformed with cumulus shape; nimbus tolerance.” A questionnaire is included that poses such queries as “What can we do when ghosts borrow our skin?” Other pages feature instructions on how to test the instrument: “TEST: Lay across the unspoken; invite lace vocabularies to travel your form.” A closing feedback form asks readers to rate the mechanism on a sliding scale, which begins with Snow and ends with Rain. Lessard’s book may appear overwhelming or perplexing to some readers at first, but a closer examination reveals that the poet is mimicking the planning strategies and language of corporate institutions to emphasize the absurdity of their dialectical approach. The statements made are generally nonsensical: “According to recent tests, sentiment can be extracted at rates comparable to the hydraulic fracturing of angels. Meat, peeled back.” But they communicate a chilling sterility indicative of a capitalist age when human individuality is obsolete and corporate emphasis is placed on the faceless consumer understood only through algorithmic data surveillance. In this respect, the unnerving work has nuances of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four but with its lens trained on the 21st century. Lessard’s writing is not without humor. A deliciously surreal questionnaire will raise a chuckle: “The oversized stone that follows us up the hill. What is its flavor? Vanilla, please explain: / Not-Vanilla, please explain.” Given its unashamed strangeness, this book is not for everyone. Those who carefully peruse the volume will find it to be a courageously unique, exploratory work that shines an eerie new light on corporate practices.
Clever, boldly innovative social commentary.Pub Date: April 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7343065-3-8
Page Count: 30
Publisher: KERNPUNKT Press
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
PERSPECTIVES
An overdue upending of art historical discourse.
An indispensable primer on the history of art, with an exclusive focus on women.
Prominent 19th-century art critic John Ruskin once proclaimed, “the woman’s intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision,” and traces of this misguided and malignant sentiment can still be found over a century later in art institutions around the world. A 2019 study found that “in the collections of eighteen major US art museums, 87 percent of artworks were by men, and 85 percent by white artists.” There’s a lot to be mad about, but London-based art historian Hessel nimbly pivots that energy into a constructive, revelatory project. This book is not a mere rebuttal to the aforementioned discrimination; deftly researched, the text reveals an alternate history of centuries of artistic movements. With palpable excitement, the author shifts the focus from widely known male participants to the unsung female players of the time. Art aficionados will delight in Hessel’s sleight of hand and marvel at her wide, inclusive reach. Spanning from Baroque art to the present day, she effortlessly removes “the clamour of men” and, in a series of short biographical profiles, shapes a historical arc that still feels grounded even without a familiar male presence. Art history must “reset,” Hessel writes, and she positions her book as an important first step in that reconfiguration. While the author progresses mostly movement by movement, her broader tangents are particularly profound. One of many highlights is a generous overview of queer artists of the Weimar era. Hessel is occasionally uneven with how much content she allots each artist, and some perfunctory profiles feel like the result of trying to highlight as many names as possible. Nonetheless, even the shortest gloss provides enough intrigue to be a successful introduction to an artist who might otherwise be forgotten.
An overdue upending of art historical discourse.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780393881868
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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