Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy
by Dave Hickey
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dave HickeyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-08-02
ISBN: 0963726455
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Art Issues Press
Book Reviews of Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy
Book Review: Another Guest for the Ideal Dinner Party
Summary: 5 Stars
"Air Guitar" is Hickey's characterization of critical writing, it's direct relationship to its subject(s) being of approximately equal import as a person playing air guitar in his living room is to a rock concert. In the words of Vladimir Horowitz, the concert pianist, it is "the words without the music." That being said, it's damned interesting, all the same, especially when approached this way. Hickey's favorite technique is to take two seemingly disparate things and to discuss the way in which they inform each other, all the while examining the net effect on his life as your basic, educated, ambitious Joe trying to fill the "great gap of time" between birth and death with a mind boggling array of interesting experiences. In this way, they're more 'think pieces' than academic essays. I'll admit, there were moments when my brain hurt; but most of the time, I was enjoying his company and his facility for mental gymnastics -- and the obvious pleasure he took in it personally. I heard of this book on a radio interview (Fresh Air? Diane Rehm Show?) and bought it specifically so that I could have my own personal copy of "My Weimar" -- a spectacular, 'where am I in the grand sceme of things now' type touchstone. Reading the whole book as a part of a recent essay jag, I found it all equally challenging, equally enjoyable.
Summary of Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy
The 23 essays (or "love songs") that make up the now classic volume Air Guitar trawl a "vast, invisible underground empire" of pleasure, through record stores, honky-tonks, art galleries, jazz clubs, cocktail lounges, surf shops and hot-rod stores, as restlessly on the move as the America they depict. Air Guitar pioneered a kind of plain-talking in cultural criticism, willingly subjective and always candid and direct. A valuable reading tool for art lovers, neophytes, students and teachers alike, Hickey's book--now in its third edition--has galvanized a generation of art lovers, with new takes on Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Perry Mason. In June 2009, Newsweek voted Air Guitar one of the top 50 books that "open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways," and described the book as "a seamless blend of criticism, personal history, and a deep appreciation for the sheer nuttiness of American life."Dave Hickey (born 1939) is one of today's most revered and widely read art writers. He has written for Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum and Vanity Fair among many others.
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