Customer Reviews

Ross Bleckner

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This book was published in conjunction with a 1995 Guggenheim mid-career retrospective. It covers his paintings from 1980 to 1984. The large square format shows off great large-sized reproductions of his work interspersed with photos and newspaper clippings from his notebooks. Some of these make sense in tandem to the paintings they are shown near, such as the blown-up clippings of hands and faces near "Hands and Faces" or the altered newspaper clipping used as the basis for "Interior (With Dots), and some juxtapositions are more puzzling, such as the soft-focus photo of a penis placed between the "Weather" paintings. At the end of the book are smaller reproductions of his watercolors, beautiful works in their own right. There is also a bibliography and exhibition history.

There are three essays in this book:

"Ross Bleckner: Painter of Light" by Lisa Dennison
A discussion of the evolution of his painting and its critical reception.

"Surface Tension: Ross Bleckner and the Conditions of Painting's Reincarnation" by Thomas Crow
Posits his work as part of a history of "discarded avenues in Modernism's evolution", particularly in relation to the highly glossy surface of his paintings.

"Painting in the Register of Loss" by Simon Watney
Discusses his work in relation to public mourning and memorializing the death and grief caused by the AIDS crisis.

Too bad this is not available at an affordable price. I'll have to keep lugging this heavy book back from the library when I want to look at it.