Upcoming:
3rdfloor Magazine Release Party Comprised entirely of submissions from the public, 3rdfloor magazine seeks to democratize art. 3rdfloor focuses on work by women, people of color, and members of the queer community. Join 3rdfloor magazine for the release of their fourth issue “Beyond Megaphones and Cosmos.” Videos and animation shorts from the 3rdfloor DVD issue will also be screened. Bluestockings, 172 Allen St. btwn. Stanton & Rivington Sts. 212-777-6028. Thu. Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. Free.
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Recently Noted:
FAITH FOR BEGINNERS Travel can be a life-affirming experience, but not if your trip is a forced march. In Aaron Hamburger’s debut novel, Mrs. Michaelson has dragged her husband and son to Israel hoping her Detroit suburb’s Millennium pilgrimage will be inspiration for them both. Her husband is dying slowly of cancer, and her son Jeremy, an NYU student, recently placed either a suicide attempt or an accidental overdose under his belt, depending on whom you ask. Hamburger uses humor and insight to get to the heart of Mrs. Michaelson and son Jeremy as he follows them through a variety of tribulations. (Seth J.Bookey)
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FRANCIS BACON’S STUDIO Several years after Francis Bacon’s death in 1992, the executor of his estate, John Edwards, donated the contents of the English painter’s studio to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, the artist’s birthplace. Bacon’s studio is legendary, a maelstrom of photos, paint supplies, liquor bottles, destroyed and half finished paintings, and other detritus from his practice. The Hugh Lane, utilizing a massive team of experts and archeologists, cataloged and moved the studio piece by piece (down to every paint tube cap) from London to Dublin and reconstructed the space for public view. The book is an impressive documentation of both the move and the contents of the studio itself. (Lorne Colon)
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GORE VIDAL’S AMERICA Dennis Altman’s new book is particularly welcome for its warts-and-all treatment of the great man’s life and work. Altman’s book is unique in being a critical assessment of Vidal by a writer who, like his subject, is left-wing and homosexual, and who also has made major contributions to the literature on (homo)sexuality, sexual politics, and social change. (George De Stefano)
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KIKI SMITH Kiki Smith, a New York artist who emerged in the ‘80s as an artist to watch, is being honored this season with a slew of traveling exhibitions and books covering the span of her work to date. This book, published by Monacelli Press, is one of two in depth monographs on the artist relating to a major traveling retrospective on Smith’s work in the United States. (Lorne Colon)
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LIKE A DOG RETURNS TO ITS VOMIT The Chapman brothers, enfants terribles of the Great Britain’s Young British Artist (YBA) scene since the early 90’s, have been consistent in their obsession with Francisco Goya. Years ago, they produced miniature models of each of Goya’s “Disasters of War” prints. Last year, they went a huge step further by actually altering—they call it “improving”—an original set of prints, drawing distorted clown and puppy heads over those of the victims. White Cube Gallery in London has published this book of recent 2D work by the brothers including their latest set of Goya print alterations. (Lorne Colon)
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LIVE THROUGH THIS Deitch Projects is one of the few holdouts from the Soho exodus to Chelsea. Their two spaces have been an important outlet for countless emerging artists, from the street to the snobby commodities. “Live Through This,” edited by Jeffrey Deitch and Kathy Grayson, is a photo album/diary of all things Deitch. The book is one of a long line of releases that resemble a ‘zine or scrapbook, pulling together hundreds of photos of New York’s “finest” at their most decadent moments. (Lorne Colon)
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PUCCINI WITHOUT EXCUSES If a gay author publishes a new book, even one not publicly known as gay, and even if the book has no gay content per se, it may be of interest to gay readers and marketed as such. This is the case with Will Berger, raconteur, operaphile, and even opera crusader extraordinaire who has embarked on an ambitious undertaking in attempting to render mainstream opera more user-friendly-most recently with“ Puccini Without Excuses.” (Larry Mass)
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Specimen Days Michael Cunningham’s novel is an experiment, and a challenge to what is considered “literary fiction,” but conventionally arranged—three novellas each revolving around a trio of New Yorkers. Presiding over each, endowing them with shape and connection, is the poetry and life of Walt Whitman. The structure is similar to “The Hours,” but Whitman’s presence never seems essential the way Virginia Woolf was to “The Hours.” The parallels Cunningham sets up in “Specimen Days” seem contrived rather than the story’s natural outgrowth. The reader knows, expects, and is ultimately unimpressed. (Stefen Styrsky)
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VITAMIN D A few years ago, art super-publisher Phaidon released a volume called “Vitamin P.” The book was an instant success, providing a broad survey of the current state of contemporary painting around the world. Phaidon has now released a sequel of sorts, focusing on drawing, appropriately titled “Vitamin D,” the most thorough and beautifully produced book on contemporary drawing, or art in general, in recent memory. (Lorne Colon)
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Walt Whitman One of the strengths of the book is to examine whether or not Whitman “disguised himself so well that he would be remembered as a homophobe rather than as the courageous champion of ‘the love that dare not speak its name?’” Kantrowitz concludes that “Whitman’s talent for contradicting himself was able to save him,” and even finds a benefit in the academic effort “by so many critics in denying and defending the simple truth [of Whitman’s homosexuality], to wit, “if the author remains elusive in some ways, we are forced to pay more attention to his work. Very few will ever pay as much attention as Kantrowitz has. (Steve Turtell).
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