This long-awaited ``insider's'' version of the contemporary art world may bring a blush to the cheeks of the ``curators, collectors, academics'' and critics who, Haden-Guest gleeflully demonstrates, ``often spend as much energy sniping at each other as at art's vigorous and well-armed enemies.'' Haden-Guest (Bad Dreams, 1981, etc.), a journalist and art critic, offers an anecdotal portrait of the American art world and, more specifically the frantic, hothouse art world of Manhattan from the 1970s to the present. He draws on the kind of stories one gleans at antic openings, art fairs, cocktail parties, and bibulous lunches rather than from a dimly lit carrel at the library. As a result, it's much more interesting to read than a sober, scholarly study. The book kicks off with an account of the glittery 1973 auction at Sotheby's of 50 works of contemporary art (by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Rauschenberg, among others) from the noted collection of Ethel and Robert Scull. Raking in over $2 million, the auction set off the frenzied pursuit of contemporary art by dealers, collectors, and museums, and also set the pattern for the edgy, often hostile relations between artists, dealers, and collectors that seemed so much a part of the art scene in the 1970s and '80s. Rumor had it that Rauschenberg (who later tried to pass legislation entitling the artist to a share of resale profits) socked Mr. Scull in the stomach after the auction. Haden- Guest blends accounts of the artists and their hangers-on (including some particularly outrageous stunts by artists desperate to make their mark) with a sly portrait of the evolution of the downtown art scene, nailing down the internal power plays lubricating the machine that SoHo became, emphasizing the temperamental nature of the art world's enthusiasm and the cruelty of the pack (collectors, critics, dealers) when novelty wears away. Sexier than Artforum but brainier than Vanity Fair, this should appeal to insiders and outsiders alike.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-87113-660-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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