Customer Reviews

Lives of the Artists

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I loved this book! I actually thought it was going to be short biographies of Old Master artists, so I was surprised to find essays about the contemporary art world. The artists portrayed here are all modern (and living) conceptual and/or abstract artists. The current "hot" artists like Damien Hirst are here, as well as the older members of the modern art movement, like Jasper Johns.

I don't follow the modern art scene that closely, so this was all refreshing and new for me. I was familiar with some of the names in the book, but not with all of the artwork described. Tomkins clearly loves art and appreciates artists, and is able to write in a clear, lucid manner about the artworks themselves. None of that crazy "artspeak" jargon that I've read in some of the modern art magazines. He followed the artists around to get his material, and clearly spent quite a bit of time with all of them. After reading each chapter, I felt compelled to look for art by those particular artists, and he really piqued my interest in them. I had heard of and seen artwork by a couple of the artists in the book, but hadn't been impressed by it previously, but the way that Tomkins explains the art and lets the artist explain the motives behind their work, it made me want to look at the art again with a new perspective.

If you are unfamiliar with the modern art world or are interested in learning about contemporary art, this book would be a perfect introduction to a few of the top names out there today. It's in-depth and beautifuly written.

It's hard to understand a lot of the contemporary art in museums and galleries. You can't just look at it and say "I like it", instead you have to learn about the concept behind it. You have to read the "owner's manual" to really get at what the art is about. The hard part is finding explanations about the art that make sense. Much of what is written is pretentious and painful to read. I've given up trying to read "artist statements".

The solution is to find the people who know how to write about art; people like Peter Schjeldahl, David Hickey and Calvin Tomkins. For my birthday this year I was given Calvin Tomkin's new book "Lives of the Artists" and I highly recommend it.

He writes:
"Formalist art critics used to say that that the life of the artist was irrelevant to an understanding of his or her work. This may be so for certain critics, but ever since 1550, when Giorgio Vasari published the first edition of his "Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors of Italy" (the title I shamefully swipe here), biography has informed our understanding of art. In my experience, the lives of contemporary artists are so integral to what they make that the two cannot be considered in isolation."

Each chapter in the book is devoted to a major living artist:

Damien Hirst
Cindy Sherman
Julian Schnabel
Richard Serra
James Turrell
Matthew Barney
Maurizio Cattelan
Jasper Johns
Jeff Koons
John Currin

To get the flavor of his writing, consider the opening paragraph:
"Making art is both harder and easier than it used to be. The radical changes in art and society that were set in motion during the early years of the twentieth century gave rise to a new kind of artist, whose first obligation was to invent or discover a new self. Tradition, skill, rigorous training, formal knowledge: All the old requirements fill away or became optional. Art, it seemed, could be whatever artists decided it was, and there were no restrictions on the new methods and materials - from video to verbal constructs to raw nature and urban detritus - that they could use. The limitless freedom of the modern artist has been an unending burden. If art can be anything, where do you begin?"

Calvin Tomkins wrote another book that I liked even better: Duchamp: A Biography. Duchamp is central to the birth of much of what is contemporary art today.

I love this writer. He has a bit of everything, intelligent, but not pretentious. Insightful and just enough juice. He has a sense of the times and ART. I LOVED Living Well is the Best Revenge, How can you not love that Title. I use it all the time to get through difficult times.

This is a tremendous read, RICH and extremely resourceful. The subjects are all intelligent, successful human beings, a great study and the work is brilliantly portrayed, VIVID. Tomkins is an extremely visual writer. Brilliant.

This is also an important piece of work for the Arts. Its a testament to the times of the artwork and the lives of the artists. Great Work.

A People Magazine view of blue chip contemporary artists - it should be called Lives of the Rich and Famous. The best parts are insights into the artists lives. Tomkins doesn't discuss their work in any depth so for anyone who is seriously interested in contemporary art, the book doesn't offer much. His writing is entertaining but I was disappointed that he only includes one woman in the book, Cindy Sherman.

I am a general reader and a general lover of the visual arts, who often finds contemporary conceptual art difficult to keep up with. I turn to books like Lives of the Artists in an attempt to keep current and for interesting conversation. Lives of the Artists, with its emphasis on the artists' lives rather than art genres and trends makes it more interesting conversation than edification, but that's okay.

Tomkins, art critic for The New Yorker, had years of articles from which to choose, and he chose biography as his organizing theme, a la Giorgio Vasari, of the movers and shakers in the contemporary international art world. His selection skews to the most controversial, provocative and/or innovative: Jasper Johns, Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, James Turrell, Julian Schnabel, John Currin, Richard Serra and Matthew Barney. Tomkins does a good job of introducing the artist in a current scene, before cutting to the back story to scribe the arc of career, inspiration and critical reaction. This mostly works, though the first profile in the collection, of Damien Hirst, had the ring of a VH1 "Behind the Music" rock star story. Tomkins provides updates on each career, current as of 2008 when this book was prepared. Alas, there are no illustrations, no images of the subjects' work or of them.

One thing I could not help but notice about the collection: though the author notes in his preface that there are thousands of working artists living and producing in New York City alone, and he had years of his own profiles to select from, he chose a line-up that is starkly white, and with the exception of Cindy Sherman, male. Women mostly appear as bit players in these stories, as girlfriends, wives, muses, studio assistants and, in a couple of instances, "porno" subjects. Is this representative of the world of art right now? It feels more like the night before the women's and civil rights movements injected a more inclusive diversity into our cultural reflection.

In an instant gratification society where 15 minutes seems to be a long time and an hour devoted to one subject is almost a career, Tomkins explains how 10 of today's artists became great.

In brief -- it takes decades of devotion to a central alluring ideal. No artist sets out to do an instant $100,000 or $ 1 million work of art; instead, they create to explain the world as they see it. When they succeed, we lesser mortals call them great and pay them their due.

James Turrell is an example; he's worked since 1974 to turn an extinct volcano just west of Arizaona's Painted Desert into an innovative celestial observatory. Most people have heard of Stonehenge; his Roden Crater is the first innovative celestial artwork in 4,000 years.

Four thousand years from now, people will view his art and, if imagination is still riotous and ridiculous, they'll create legends of how it was built by Merlin and the Druids, or by Navajo medicine men and Coyotes. Terell may be a Trickster for a far distant future.

To start, he built and lived in a tiny log cabin for 19 months to study the crater's light and landscape. Sculpting the landscape is an ancient North American craft, as shown by the Moundbuilders. Watson Brake, in northeast Louisiana, was built 2,500 years before the great Egyptian pyramids, about 3,500 years before Stonehenge.

Egyptians built pyramids, as did the Maya and Aztec. Europeans built henges. In North America, the landscape is an inspiration from the Hudson River School to the Group of Seven to the Sedona buttes in the background of Krazy Kat cartoons and to Monument Valley where John Ford filmed his most notable westerns. Terrell continues a proud legacy.

The genius is not in the landscape; Tomkins explains how artists such as Terrell see something that slips invisibly past the vision of us mere mortals. He does a beautiful job of piecing together the artistry, dedication, skill and labour required to draw out a new vision from old familiar surroundings.

Art has an interesting evolution. For the Pharaohs, it was a sign of permanence. A painting of people baking bread meant the occupant of a tomb would have bread for eternity. Gradually, art evolved into picturesque and decorative.

Today's art explains things we cannot otherwise understand, such as Terell and his look into the universe. Tomkins makes it real for the average reader who cannot otherwise take part in such creativity, deftly explaining 10 significant modern artists.

All in all, a superb book about a usually unfathomable subject.

This 2008 collection by New Yorker art critic & author Calvin Tomkins profiles the contemporary artists, photographers and sculptors ("art stars") Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, James Turrell, Matthew Barney, Maurizio Cattelan, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons and John Currin. I studied these profiles for commonalities, to discover what made these artists so acclaimed in the art world and wildly successful financially. What was their secret? With the exception of Maurizio Cattelan, who grew up in Italy and experienced poverty and a string of low-paying jobs before discovering art, it turns out that all of them went to a leading-edge experimental art school or had access to a "happening" university art department. Because they were exposed to radical new art movements that were happening at the time, each artist had no problem with creating their own genre. Each belonged to a special "clique" of co-artists and creators in their school, exhibited with that group, got exhibited in major galleries through contacts via that same group, or were "discovered" by major galleries and collectors as a group or part thereof. They all seemed to be "in the right place in the right time". The other thing that set these artists apart from the crowd was that each one had a huge uncompromising vision, and "big ideas" in terms of expression and media. Interestingly, each has a very strong ego (surprise!), with only one or two off the scale into diva-land. All of the art stars have a talent for self-promotion and/or business, and don't mind hanging out with gallery owners and collectors. So in conclusion, for all of you wanting to tackle the "most demanding job on earth" (Tomkins), here's what you do: (1) go to an experimental art school (2) join a clique (3) exhibit with that clique (4) get discovered with that clique (5) take chances (6) have a powerful vision of your art in both concept & execution (7) have a big ego (8) enjoy shameless self-promotion and networking and (9) be in the right place at the right time!!

Calvin Tomkins, a quite talented writer, who loves Marcel Duchamp, strings previously published magazine articles on several contemporary artists into an interesting book.

I found the words devoted to Jasper Johns the best, but this may be because the other subjects of Mr. Tomkins' book mostly create art that eludes my personal appreciation.

If you are interested in the buying side related to similar art (including works by some of these same artists), please consider purchasing Giuseppe Panza's "Memories of a Collector."

I am very disappointed to find out that I cannot buy this book because I live in Europe. Why did I buy a Kindle for? It makes me feel like a second rate customer or someone living in a country from the Axis of Evil.

What should I do? Should I go to Barnes & Noble, where this title IS available? Should I have bought their ebook reader instead?

Dear copyright owners, please DO understand that we just want to READ BOOKS, and we're trying to BUY THEM!