Customer Reviews

Critical Kitaj (Issues in Art History Series)

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As a student currently researching a dissertation on Kitaj, I must say that this handy little book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the study of this fascinating artist. The texts are rather dense and scholarly (the general reader should check out Marco Livingstone's monograph) but they cover a very wide range of issues and interpretations, some of which have never been dealt with in depth before. One such example is Pat Gilmour's essay on Kitaj's importance as a screenprinter, something rarely touched on in the literature, mainly due to Kitaj's re-evaluation of his early work.

Furthermore, other essays explore Kitaj's relation to tradition, his interest in cinema, as well as the social and historical context surrounding some of his allusive paintings. There is even a rather critical essay by Terry Atkinson (formerly of Art & Language) which takes Kitaj to task for daring to carry on the "fetish" of painting. Rather, suggests Atkinson, artists ought to give up such nonsense and sit around pondering the nature of Modernism instead. Oh well, we can't all be philosophers, yet it's heartening that there are still artists alive such as Kitaj who can carry on producing painting which invites informed and stimulating discussion in books such as this.