From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. With its beautiful layouts, pin-sharp reproductions and sparkling texts, this enormous 15-pound book is worth every penny of its price. The volume kicks off with an illuminating essay by Dave Hickey (
Air Guitar) that traces the development of Warhol's genre-mocking style to his childhood in industrial Pittsburgh. Poverty forced Warhol to hone the instincts of a salesman, Hickey suggests, and neighborhood tales about Czech folk hero David Schrapnel taught him his favorite artistic method: get it exactly wrong. "Exactly wrong demonstrated that you knew what was exactly right and you were doing it wrong for the right reasons," Hickey explains. "Thus, in his impoverished early days as a fashion illustrator, Warhol dressed so wretchedly that... colleagues suspected him of being rich." The volume covers both Warhol's numerous accomplishments (in commercial illustration, advertising, painting, film) and his transformation of the New York art scene so thoroughly that even fans will gain new appreciation for Warhol's enduring influence. Longer texts by Kenneth Goldsmith, David Dalton, Ivan Karp, Peggy Phelan, Ronnie Cutrone and Bruno Bischofberger reward sustained reading, but for those who prefer browsing, the 16"×12" reproductions and the quotations of Warhol's many witticisms will be enough.
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About the Author
Dave Hickey is a freelance writer of fiction and cultural criticism, curator, and lecturer who has been affiliated with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 1992. He has served as owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place gallery in Austin, Texas, as director of the Reese Palley Gallery in New York City, as Executive Editor of Art in America magazine in New York City, and as Contributing Editor to The Village Voice. He has written for most major American cultural publications including The Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Interview, Harper's Magazine, Vanity Fair, Nest, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. Hickey received a B.A. (1961) from Texas Christian University and an M.A. (1963) from the University of Texas at Austin. He served as curator for SITE Santa Fe's Fourth International Biennial, "Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism" (July 2001 - January 2002). Hickey has been a visiting professor at numerous institutions, including Harvard University, Rice University, and the Otis Parsons Institute, Los Angeles. His critical essays on art have been collected in two volumes: The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) and Air Guitar: Essays in Art and Democracy (1997). Hickey is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1969) and the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art or Architectural Criticism (1993). In 2001, he was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship grant.
