Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299170705 ISBN 13: 9780299170707

Publisher: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

Synopsis

When an artist dies we face two great losses: the person and the work he did not live to do. Loss within Loss  is a moving collaboration by some of America's most eloquent writers, who supply wry, raging, sorrowful, and buoyant accounts of artist friends and lovers struck down by AIDS. These essayists include Maya Angelou, Alan Gurganus, Brad Gooch, John Berendt, Craig Lucas, Robert Rosenblum, and eighteen others. Many of the subjects of the essays were already prominent—James Merrill, Paul Monette, David Wojnarowicz—but many others died young, before they were able to fulfil the promise of their lives and art. Loss within Loss spans all of the arts and includes portraits of choreographers, painters, poets, actors, playwrights, sculptors, editors, composers, and architects.

This landmark book is published in association with the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, a national organization that preserves art works created by artists living with HIV or lost to AIDS. Loss within Loss stands as a powerful reminder of the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic on the arts community and as the first real survey of that devastation. Though these accounts are often intensely sad, Loss within Loss is an invigorating, sometimes even exuberant, testimony to the sheer joy of being an artist . . . and being alive.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Contributors: Introduction by Edmund White Maya Angelou--poem John Berendt on Bruce Kelly, architect William Berger on Chris Deblasio, composer Alexander Chee on Peter Kelloran, painter David Gere on Joah Lowe, choreographer Brad Gooch on Howard Brookner, filmmaker Alan Gurganus on James Merrill, writer Randall Kenan on John C. Russell, playwright Philip Lopate on Warren Sonbert, filmmaker Craig Lucas on several artists J. D. McClatchy on James Merrill and Paul Monette, writers Keith McDermott on Joe Brainard, visual artist Ramsey McPhilips on Mark Morrisroe, visual artist Patrick Moore on Robert Farber, painter Herbert Muschamp on Frank Israel, architect, and Derek Jarman, filmmaker Felice Picano on Robert Ferro, writer Robert Rosenblum on Scott Burton, sculptor Sarah Schulman on Stan Leventhal, writer/editor Andrew Solomon--essay Benjamin Taylor on Robert Anton, puppeteer Jonathan Weinberg on Marc Lida, visual artist Philip Yenawine on David Wojnarowicz, visual artist/writer

From the Back Cover:

"An original and powerful piece of work.... These writers quite effectively and movingly combine elements of profile, eulogy, eye-witness reportage, artistic appraisal, and assessment of the impact (negative and positive) that AIDS had on their friends' work and careers."--Philip Gambone, author of Something Inside "Searingly honest, full of feeling, and pissed-off, the essays uncover new truths about one of the most horrific events of the twentieth century. The writing is endlessly surprising and is a huge contribution to acknowledging the psychic and emotional scars of the last two decades."--Tim Miller, author of Shirts & Skin "An instructive volume of highest intellect and humanity. With his special compassion, literary skill, and vast personal knowledge of our era's saddest phenomenon, Edmund White is the ideal editor for this unique collection. For myself, who recently had heart and soul broken by the AIDS-related death of my dearest friend, I can only salute this worthy project."--Ned Rorem, composer and author "These essays and memoirs are lucid, thought-provoking and always surprising. I commend Edmund White and the authors for their bravery and eloquence."--David Leavitt, author of Martin Bauman; Or, a Sure Thing

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0299170705
• ISBN 13: 9780299170707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Edmund White