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MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

Review

May one say that Kelly Grovier is also a poet? Besides of being an art critic, historian, and author of Kunst, die Geschichte schreiben wird (100 Works of Art that Will Define our Age (see his Five Poems here: http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=2939)?
Not to be misunderstood: I find it a charming, challenging and also tastefully made book, not least because two concepts of writing about contemporary art contradict each other here (or work as counterpoints within one book, but not without some tensions).
It is probably the publisher who likes the author to be seen, ideally, as an opinion leader, and, understandably, being read by many, many people, and one does feel, today, indeed a demand for connoisseurs of contemporary art, giving directions (yet the book is not yelling at you: these are the 100 artists you must know).
But, at least with regard to a German speaking audience, the publisher has apparently to stress that Grovier is an expert of contemporary art (and thus, we read between the lines, something more solid (?) than a poet, historian, critic, in sum: a sensitive individual that is living simply various sides of his identity, which is also enabling him to react to art in manyfolded ways, but not necessarily as a self-declared opinion leader who pretends to know everything (except that he or she is hiding his or her doubts and shortcomings).
Personally I see and I do appreciate this book as a collection of encounters, of reflections of an individual, who is an author and also a poet, with contemporary works of arts. And often, and quite obviously, it is poetry, lines by Rilke, Yeats, Larkin, Auden, Frost, Tranströmer and others, that ignite Grovier’s reflections. That beautifully show how someone who has also a carefulness with words can react to contemporary works of art, stemming from the last 25 years.
The general reflections, found in the general introduction, I find less convincing (for example, in my opinion, Van Gogh does at best in a certain sense represent his own times, whose essence and mentalities I would, as a historian, rather not see as being represented by works of art of the outsider Van Gogh), but again: I really do appreciate this book because of its showing how the author, as one individual and as one art critic, responds to individual artists and works of arts, and in that, is giving also a beautiful example how one can deal, individually, with individual works of arts. And this is something else than simply putting together what, in the opinion of a self-declared opinion leader, the general audience has to know and to appreciate.
In that sense I would like to recommend to be generally suspicious of self-declared opinion leaders, with their jargon and ideology of relevance, and to follow the author’s example. And maybe we will also follow his example, in reading and looking at times, for example, at Raqib Shaw’s The Garden of Earthly Delights more in detail here, with the ancient poet Horace igniting our reflections.

(Picture: lovelybooks.de)

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

Review

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
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