Ambition and Love in Modern American Art [Hardcover]

Mr. Jonathan Weinberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300081871 | ISBN-13: 978-0300081879 | Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Freud wrote that the artist "desires to win honour, power, wealth, fame, and the love of women". In this engrossing book, Jonathan Weinberg investigates how an artist's ambition interacts with his or her art, how wealth and celebrity play a role in the artistic process. He shows that anxiety about the relationship of an artwork to identity and the corrupting influence of fame plague modern artists of all genders and sexual orientations. Weinberg begins by discussing Whistler's famous portrait of his mother in terms of maternal metaphors for painting. He then looks at the familial relationships forged by artists like Jackson Pollock and Sally Mann with their imagined tradition. He next focuses on the role of love in photographs by Alfred Stieglitz as well as Georgia O'Keeffe's attempts to find autonomy from her partner Stieglitz. Weinberg also reveals that artistic fame is usually a matter of competition, and he examines the impulse of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol to work together. The book concludes with a rumination on the NAMES Project Quilt and the problem of what becomes of those who die in obscurity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Loosely grouped under three intriguing categories ("Parents," "Autonomy" and "Collaborations"), Ambition & Love in Modern American Art tracks definitions of significant art as they changed over the 20th century. In looking for what shapes significance, artist Jonathan Weinberg (Speaking for Vice) focuses on the role of ambition, celebrity and desire, the forces of public life outside the artist's studio, and their inevitable encroachment on what happens within it. His nine loosely connected essays examine the works and lives of Whistler, Jackson Pollock, Sally Mann, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. But rather than capturing and isolating some element of timeless significant form, Weinberg suggests that an artist's real talent "is a matter of convincing others that you are talented."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Yale Publications in the History of Art

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300081871
• ISBN-13: 978-0300081879
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Purchase this Book! Incredibly Absorptive..., July 27, 2001

By 

zakaraiah jason (Yonkers) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ambition and Love in Modern American Art (Hardcover)

I loved this book. This magisterial work makes for absorptive reading- it absorbs your interest in art as well as your capacity to read further. The author displays an incredible sponge-like capacity. Like a sponge used to prevent any conception, the work keeps anything from coming into mind. I particularly loved the chapters on Wharhole and Polyp: Weineberg's own style pays fantastic homage in imitating the abrasive contents of the former's brillo box. It's also great how the author just soaks up some cast off comments from Freud and Manzoni, draining them like a vampire. He just sinks his teeth right in! I had a few disagreements about how he handled Basquiat with rubber gloves, especially the early work, but in the end I appreciated Weinberg's janitorial finesse and the range of his sweeping generalization.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book!!!, July 23, 2001

By 

Phyllis Johnson (Bournemouth, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ambition and Love in Modern American Art (Hardcover)

It's certainly true, as some critics have argued, that there's not enough here to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of professional art historians. But that misses Weinberg's central point: that it's far less important to possess talent than it is to convince others that you have it. Indeed, implicit in Weinberg's study is the idea that the plain and undisguised absence of talent is no obstacle to thinking of oneself as an artist. But whereas any number of critics have made this argument before, and convincingly so, what makes Weinberg's analysis different is his choice of words -- for even as he neatly reiterates the arguments of earlier scholars, he oftentimes uses entirely different words to do so, sometimes going so far as to construct whole sentences that might reasonably be labelled as his own. Less hospitable reviewers have described Weinberg's book as "an academic redundancy," "the fatuous mutterings of a vacant and sterile intellect," and even "the crudely drawn transcript of a mind nearly porcine in its desire to wallow around in its own filth." But what such judgments fail to acknowledge is that, in the context of Weinberg's book, such intellectual ineptitude is transformed into a self-justifying vehicle for professional advancement. It may be all its critics have made it out to be (in the end, one is hard pressed to refute their attacks). But the important lesson that Weinberg teaches us is that scholarly merit, or the lack thereof, is ultimately no substitute for artless ambition.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Try in vain to put it down., June 30, 2002

By 

"keithkaky" (Autin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ambition and Love in Modern American Art (Hardcover)

I, like others, picked up Weinberg's book after the stellar Nochlin review. I was somewhat puzzled by the project at first, but as is often the case with the art Weinberg discusses, "Ambition and Love in Modern American Art" is too seductive to dismiss. While his categories seem vague, even silly, his discussion of the artists and their work is elegant. His style is always engaging, mostly because it is so often personal. I suspect that critics have been troubled by Weinberg's approach, the lack of any real scholarly investigation, replaced by coffee-table talk and emotional musings. I can't really refute such critiques. But I do think that Weinberg's approach holds a lesson for all those interested in studying, writing about, and even practicing art. To try and separate oneself from the art you create or examine is a futile enteprise. His inclusion and discussion of such themes (God forbid!) as love, desire, and ambition adds a much needed jolt of blood and flesh into art history. It reminds us that art history is no science and that art historians need not feel so insecure about that. After all, art-making itself is not just a process of intellect, it is one of passion. Perhaps historians should investigate their own stirrings a bit more, as Weinberg has done here, to make their own scholarship truly insightful and what's more, readable.