Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: A catalogue-like book made by the Serralves Museum in 2009, when they made their first major exhibition fully focused on the artworks they have in their collection. Besides photographs and documents, this book also features essays on Serralves’ history and the logic behind the collection. Very informative for those who are interested in knowing a bit more about the museum.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: Earlier this year I went to a conference in Lisbon in which Jacques Rancière and Hans Belting discussed various problematics regarding the image. Despite having unfortunately chosen a seat next to a gentleman who kept falling asleep and loudly snoring, I enjoyed the talk, and was intrigued enough to delve into Jacques Rancière’s work (I was already familiar with Hans Belting’s).
The author has some thought-provoking ideas, and he writes in such a clear, logical way that I ended up liking this book a lot, even though I didn’t quite agree with all his points. The book comprises five essays (the results of various talks given all over the world), all of which are highly intelligent, well-developed, and far too long and detailed for me to discuss here, so I’ll just list them briefly.
The first of them, The Emancipated Spectator, is about the problematic of the spectator in the art of theatre, which was interesting to me since theatre is probably the art form I’m least versed in. The author raises some very good points about whether the spectator is passive or active, and if that should be addressed or changed by the actors. Next came The Misadventures of Critical Thinking, which explores the tradition of criticizing art and whether that tradition (or its denial) is relevant nowadays. The Paradoxes of Political Art was one of the most interesting to me, since it delved deep into the contradictions inherent to political, and politicized, art. The last two, The Intolerable Image and The Thinking Image, were closer to the lecture I listened to and focused mainly on images and visual arts.
This is a book well-worth reading, and I also recommend searching for the responses to these ideas by other authors, some of which can be found online.
Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)
Review: A thorough and sobering look at the business of museums and galleries and what it is really like working in this field. The art world sometimes feels like a confusing place, and it’s hard to plan a career because nobody seems to have followed the same route to where they are, erroneously leading one to think that everything depends on luck. So it’s refreshing to read a practical study, with interviews and case studies from people in the field.
The only negative point is that it’s very UK centric, but I guess that’s to be expected. All in all, a very useful read, highly recommended if you’re starting out.
Rating: *** (3 out of 5)
Review: This book aims to be a thorough guide to the principles of exhibition designing, from trade fairs to museums and galleries.
While it touches upon many interesting themes, I felt that it was lacking in several areas – the information is a bit disorganized and for the most part it doesn’t go into detail about the things that are being explained. A lot of the schematics, while visually impressive, lacked explanations and context, and most of the times the labels were so small they were unreadable. But the biggest problem I had with the book is that it makes no apparent separation between trade / commercial exhibitions and art exhibitions. Say what you will, I’m not so cynical as to think that what you’re hoping to reach with an art exhibition in a museum is the same as from a trade fair exhibition where you sell products.
Still, this was fairly useful in giving an introduction to aspects of design I didn’t know a lot about.
Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)
Review: A book about the wonderful work of Dave McKean for the Sandman comics. There really isn’t much else to say – if you love Dave McKean’s artwork you will love this book. Each cover has a story, and all the little details will have you stare at the images for a long time. It’s interesting to see how his work evolved over the years, and the commentary from both the artist and Neil Gaiman (who also wrote a short story for the book) is funny and insightful.
Definitely worth it if you’re a Sandman fan. If you’re not, I’m sure you’ll be interested in checking it out after you read this book.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: Regardless of bad choices in business practice, Polaroid and its cameras remain one of the best things that happened to Photography. Recently, with news of the company shutting down and new enterprises taking over the responsibility to perpetuate the film manufacture, there’s been a revival of interest in the polaroid medium, specially for artists and photographers.
This book is gorgeous and of wonderful quality. The essays are interesting, if a little short and superficial. There’s no shortage of images, and I felt like the book would have benefited from a tighter selection, as well as less literal pairings. However, there are some true gems throughout, and this is worth it for those who take interest in Polaroids.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: I came across this book in my college’s library while doing research for an essay on the changing roles and concept of the curator. It was certainly interesting to be exposed to such different perspectives on curating. There were a lot of opinions I disagreed with strongly, and a few positive and thought-provoking points being made. The field of art curating is still a relatively new one to be studied, and in the sense that everyone is still trying to make sense of it, , this is a valuable book that is sure to raise questions.
Recommended for both students and professionals.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: Part of a collection that aims to study and reflect upon the public and audiences for cultural endeavors, this book, coordinated by Fátima Marques Pereira, explores exhibitions and the various themes surrounding this vast area of studies that, unfortunately, has had little critical advances in Portugal.
The book features an array of contributions from many different people, from curators, to artists, to organizers, in varying quality. I specially liked the interview with João Paulo Velez, director of of Communication of the wildly sucessful EXPO 98, the universal exhibition set in Lisbon.
I appreciate how hard it must have been to publish a collection of books in such a specific (and potentially not profitable) topic, and I applaud the initiative.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: This book is a collection of essays by a myriad of professionals in the field, selected and edited by Paula Marincola of the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. As a student of Museum and Curatorial Studies, it caught my eye at the bookstore, and surely enough, less than a month later, in class, we started studying a couple of the essays included.
Theoretically, the essays attempt to tackle the extremely vague and open question that lends itself to the title of the book, and in order to do so, the editor sent a list of questions to the contributors for them to work as they saw fit (this list is available to the reader in the form of a bookmark, besides being part of the cover’s original design). However, I found that a lot of the essays didn’t actually attempt to answer that question, and instead explored other themes related to curating; that wasn’t a problem to me, since they were still interesting and informative, it just feels a bit strange to be told that the book will be something and then find out it’s different (if only slightly).
The essays themselves were of mixed relevance and quality. A few of them were in need of revision, with errors in grammar and phrase construction (English isn’t my first language and yet I still noticed them), but overall the quality was excellent, and a few of them explored issues and details of exhibition making that I haven’t seen explored elsewhere. Ingrid Schaffner’s essay on wall text, and Robert Storr’s “Show and Tell”, were particularly useful.
A great resource for students and professionals.
Rating: **** (4 out of 5)
Review: In the world that surrounds us, there are many smaller “worlds” that regular people don’t usually have access to. Some, like the medical or forensic experts world, are explored through popular TV shows and mass media culture, so that the general population, not exactly being a part of it, still feels like they have some access and knowledge of it (even if it is of a highly romanticized, flawed and fictionalized account). Such a thing doesn’t happen with the art world, the internal workings of which remain virtually shut off from outsiders (with a few exceptions).
Sarah Thornton, the author, is a sociologist who adopts a “cat on the prowl” method rather than a “fly on the wall” one, that is, she immerses herself in the world she is studying, searching for situations and exploring them to their full potential. The access she obtains is remarkable, with some of the major players in the art world as interviewees, and the reporting of a few events that few people ever get to be a part of. This book is divided into seven parts, each depicting “a day” in a different part of the art world: the Auction, the Crit, the Fair, the Prize, the Magazine, the Studio Visit and the Biennale.
I bought this book because, even though I’m technically a part of the art world she describes (I’m taking a Master’s degree in Museum and Curatorial studies), there are still a few parts of it that are a mystery to me. The art world is rather schizophrenic, with intense contrasts and polarized beliefs and actions, and the book does a great job presenting this: for example, we have the very rich people who believe art is a commodity versus very poor art students who abhor words like creativity and never speak about money. There’s a delicate balancing of these conflicting beliefs, and it’s fascinating to see the mechanics behind that balancing.
However, I have to say that the tone of this book was one of exaggeration. In all these stories, the volume is turned up high, and the people described and their actions seem at times so extreme that I started to wonder if they were not caricatures of themselves. It makes it seem like there is no place in the art world for balanced human beings or actions. This is far from the truth (again, I speak from my own personal experience); this probably happens because it’s much more interesting to show the extremes than to make space in the book for less sensational situations.
There was also a lot of name-dropping, a few of which weren’t familiar to me, so I read this with a search engine in front of me. I actually loved that, since I like learning about new artists and critics, but I imagine that it can get tiresome for some people.
All in all, this is a fascinating book if you’re interested in the mechanics of the art world, with an easy to read (but still interesting) language, based on a remarkable research work. Definitely worth it.
It took me a long time to finally finish this, seems like life got in the way of reading this year. 2010 is almost over and I haven’t reached 50 books yet, let alone my initial goal of reading 100 books! Here’s to hoping 2011 will be a better year for reading (and everything else, for that matter). Right now I’m reading What Makes a Great Exhibition?, edited by Paula Marincola.
