Research Catalog

Title

Vile days : the Village Voice art columns, 1985-1988 / Gary Indiana ; edited by Bruce Hainley.

Author

Indiana, Gary

Publication

• South Pasadena, CA : Semiotext(e), [2018]
• Cambridge, Mass. : The MIT Press, [2018]
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Hainley, Bruce

Description

595 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

From March 1985 through June 1988 in The Village Voice, Gary Indiana reimagined the weekly art column. Thirty years later, 'Vile Days' brings together for the first time all of those vivid dispatches, too long stuck in archival limbo, so that the fire of Indiana's observations can burn again. In the midst of Reaganism, the grim toll of AIDS, and the frequent jingoism of postmodern theory, Indiana found a way to be the moment's Baudelaire. He turned the art review into a chronicle of life under siege. As a critic, Indiana combines his novelistic and theatrical gifts with a startling political acumen to assess art and the unruly environments that give it context. No one was better positioned to elucidate the work of key artists at crucial junctures of their early careers, from Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince to Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman, among others. But Indiana also remained alert to the aesthetic consequence of sumo wrestling, flower shows, public art, corporate galleries, and furniture design. Edited and prefaced by Bruce Hainley, with an afterword by Tobi Haslett, 'Vile Days' provides an opportunity to track Indiana's emergence as one of the most prescient writers of his generation.

Series Statement

Semiotext(e) active agents series

Uniform Title

Semiotext(e) active agents series

Alternative Title

Village Voice art columns, 1985-1988

Subjects

• Art, Modern
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• 1900-1999
• Art, Modern > 20th century > History and criticism

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Note

• Includes index.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Prelude to a Preface / by Gary Indiana -- One Brief, Scuzzy Moment -- Old Art, No Money -- Fatal Vision -- Seduction and Production -- Peeping Tom -- Living with Contradictions -- Postappropriation -- Imitation and Its Double -- Debby with Monument -- The Windex of Vulnerability -- The Rest of Everything -- Framing Creatures -- Mapplethorpe -- Art Objects -- Goodbye, Jackie -- Station to Station -- The Dark Side of Gilbert and George -- Paradigms of Dysfunction -- Honey, Pollen, and Garnett Puett -- Just an Opinion -- Deep Fat -- The Collins-Milazzo Effect -- Dada Black Sheep -- The Wages of Angst -- Dear Decade -- Banks of America -- O Furniture -- Slice of Art -- Shadows of a Summer Night -- Just Add Milk -- Quarterly Dividends -- The Hollow -- Enigmatic Makeup -- Now, Voyager -- The World's Only Hygiene in Pictures -- Where the Beuys Is -- Genuine Imitation Art -- "Garbage, the City and Death," Etc. -- Sherrie Levine and Bette Davis: Affinities and Contrasts -- Memories Are Made of This -- The Age of Silver -- Signs of Empire -- The Physiology of Taste -- New and Different -- The Good, the Bad, and the Turgid -- The No Name Review -- On the River of No Return -- Talking Back -- Light and Death -- Undermining Media -- The Enigma of Uranus -- Formal Wares -- Liquid Memory, Solid Objects -- Notes from the Snake Pit -- New York Commonplaces -- Soho Sketches -- Imitation of Life -- United States -- Insomnia -- After Reading Bernhard's Gargoyles -- Canceled Texte -- Travel Pieces -- Ti Shan Hsu: A Chat -- Mono -- Home -- Socks Make the Man -- Venice as Usual -- Castle to Castle -- The Death of Photography -- Chaos Plus -- Infomania -- Square Roots -- Writing in Public -- Star Search -- Janet Malcolm Gets It Wrong -- The Joy of Killing -- Enclosed by System -- Landscape Today -- Easy Pieces -- Rummaging Around -- Model Prisons -- III Met -- The Fear Problem -- Short Memory -- It's a Pleasure To Serve You -- Future Perfect -- Live Wire -- Triumph of the Cute -- Chronicle in Black & White -- Negative Sublime Revisited -- Futurisms: A Conversation with Peter Nagy -- Another Review of the Whitney -- I'll Be Your Mirror -- Hot Dogg -- Untitled (Are We Having Fun Yet?) -- Untitled (Cindy Sherman Confidential) -- Transcendental Meditation -- Clownophobia Today -- '80s People -- Agitations -- Three Mile Island -- Endgame -- Really Real -- Strange Weather -- A Torture Garden -- Modern Sacrifice -- The Critic's Role -- Funny Ha Ha, Funny Strange -- Blue Moon -- The Last Cigarette -- Guys and Dogs -- Faking It -- 1988: Some Thoughts From 15 Artists -- Quick! Read This! -- Blood and Guts -- Secrets of the Rothko Chapel -- Blind Item -- Nerve Meter Revisited -- Science Holiday -- So Big -- A Curious Part of the Planet -- Wave Theory -- Read My Lips -- A Penny for the Peepshow -- The Auctions -- Doglessness -- Was It Good for Lou? -- Vile Days.

ISBN

• 9781635900378
• 1635900379

LCCN

2018288950

OCLC

• on1029789223
• 1029789223
• SCSB-9313609

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library