Drawing Us in: Essays on How We Experience Visual Art : A Beacon Anthology - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807066060 ISBN 13: 9780807066065

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 2000

Synopsis

A collection of essays which offers a delightful range of views on the role of art in our psychic, social, and political lives. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Alfred Kazin, Mary Gordon, Dave Hickey and more.

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Reviews

This slim collection of short essays by writers, literary critics and art historians makes for an often enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying collage of reflections on visual art. The most successful contributions are the less self-absorbed, such as New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl's meditation on the theft of The Scream, photographer Wendy Ewald's ethnographical approach to the role of photographs in the lives of Appalachian children and New Republic critic Jed Perl's theoretical musings on how "visual experience" has been marginalized by, in part, our inability to see art "as an experience that takes place in time." Playwright August Wilson and critic-at-large bell hooks discuss the centrality of Romare Bearden's work. Eminent philosopher and critic Arthur C. Danto offers a cultural/political take on art and society, painter Laurie Fendrich attempts to explain "why abstract painting still matters" and the brilliantly offhanded Dave Hickey (Air Guitar) invites us to think less and enjoy more. But too many of the more intimate entries evoke a sense of d?j? vu all over againAhow art unifies and humanizes (novelist Dorothy Allison), how in the past art played a more central role in the culture (the late, great Alfred Kazin). (Novelist Mary Gordon fares better with "Notes on Pierre Bonnard and My Mother's Ninetieth Birthday.") The 15 piecesAfew more than several pages in lengthAhave the polish of magazine work and are easily read in bites, but they don't quite come together as a whole, or as a definitive look at the current range of visual art experiences. Foreword by Hilton Als not seen by PW.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As straightforward as its subtitle, this volume collects 15 brief essays describing the myriad ways human beings appreciate art. Don't let this thin volume deceive, however, for it is very high on impact in spite of its size. The tone is generally personal and accessible, clarifying the aesthetic issues involved. Critics, practicing artists, art teachers, and social observers all contribute their contrasting points of view. Most of the contributors, like Peter Schjeldahl ("A Theft in Norway"), bell hooks ("Art on My Mind"), Lucy Lippard ("Doubletake: The Diary of a Relationship with an Image"), and Arthur C. Danto ("Art and the Discourse of Nations"), are well-known figures in the art world. This book would make an excellent text for introductory art courses, yet it is a delight to read because it is so compact and personal. It is the kind of book that lingers with the reader because the essayists are so easy to identify with and because they summarize timeless art-related concerns. As has been said of many films, "I laughed, I cried." Recommended for public as well as academic collections.DSusan Olcott, Powell, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807066060
• ISBN 13: 9780807066065
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 138
• Editor: Chasman Deborah, Chiang Edna