It's a rarity that I ever receive anything other than the most mundane of press releases from local galleries and museums.
Not because the work being exhibited is mundane.
Far from it.
Press releases are generally bare bones things, with just the What When and Wheres addressed. Boring at best, wastes of paper (digital or the stuff from trees) at worst.
At first glance, the PR for Laguna Art Museum's lecture by author Bram Dijksa on his new book book Naked: The Nude in America this Sunday at 1:00, sounds pretty standard.
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Author of books with smart titles like American Expressionism, Art and Social Change, 1920-1950 and Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin de-Siecle Culture, Dijksa
is a professor emeritus of comparative literature and cultural history
at UC San Diego, so it's a safe bet he'll be well-informed and
interesting.
Then I stumbled over and upon the following intriguing words:
resplendent
more than four hundred color illustrations
male and female nude
taboo-shredding
Robert Mapplethorpe
pubic hair
pin-up queen
breast
Betty Page
… and a tidy description that settled any doubts:
“In
chronological and thematic order, the book demonstrates the links
between the work of some of the most famous names in the history of
American painting..sculpture…and photography…, and that of the
outlaw hordes of cartoonists, book-cover illustrators, and visual
extremists who, particularly during the last half-century, were able to
turn the United States into the world's principal purveyor of erotic
fantasies.”
Anything that flips a finger at our Puritan ancestors is worth my time, as well as–I hope–yours.
Well played, Laguna Art Musuem. Well played.
Afterward, I had a cigarette, and hoped–yes, hoped, gentle readers–that Laguna or the publishers would send me a reviewers copy so that I might…well…review it.
I'm waiting.
Bram
Dijkstra will be talking about–and autographing–his new book Naked:
The Nude in America at Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach,
this Sunday, November 14 at 1:00 p.m.. Books are a hefty $75.00–they
make great stocking stuffers!–and will be on sale at the event. Free
for Museum Members and included in the paid admission price for
non-members. For more information, call 949-494-8971.
Dave Barton has written for the OC Weekly for over twenty years, the last eight as their lead art critic. He has interviewed artists from punk rock photographer Edward Colver to monologist Mike Daisey, playwright Joe Penhall to culture jammer Ron English.