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haydens's review against another edition
i didn't finish because it's very difficult for me to stay engaged with a PDF, but i'll return to it and hopefully in print
mkupfer's review against another edition
5.0
Ways of seeing are always political.
Sadly only just found out about bh’s artistic background. Really enjoyed this and it grounds a lot of theory for me.
Sadly only just found out about bh’s artistic background. Really enjoyed this and it grounds a lot of theory for me.
coryk's review against another edition
Really interesting, but I want to be able to spend more time with it.
as_a_tre3's review against another edition
5.0
Another mind blowing piece by the incomparable bell hooks. Reading this book, I felt that hooks should have been a polymath herself. I also loved how she’s been consistent with her approach to decolonize many subjects including arts, through the lens of working class and poor people.
seeceeread's review against another edition
4.5
💭 "If one could make a people lose touch with their capacity to create, lose sight of their will and their power to make art, then the work of subjugation, of colonization, is complete. [...] If black folks are to collectively affirm our subjectivity in resistance, as we struggle against forces of domination and move towards the invention of the decolonized self, we must set our imaginations free."
Dismayed and disgusted with rampant attention to (a chosen few) Black artist's identities, and therefore an utter dearth of criticism, hooks sets out to show 𝘩𝘰𝘸 Black art can and should be reviewed. She rejects the simplistic notion that a critique means personal disrespect or dislike. Rather, she undertakes discussion of specific careers and art pieces in multiple media, interviews and standalone essays to begin to fill the gap she sees.
hooks is interested in the power of photography, as used by everyday Black people, to document beauty and subvert cultural texts: "The camera allowed black folks to combine image-making, resistance struggle, and pleasure."
She examines the role of class as a critical mediator of access and expectations for young people to art. hooks waxes on the gendered reception of men as artists (celebrated for their drive and commitment to their craft) compared to women (constantly siphoning time from other priorities to attend to art, guilty all the while; lacking the material affirmation of their social sphere).
hooks searches pieces for their traces, scratching each palimpsest (she loves this word) for its ancestral echoes. She theorizes the Black artistic tradition as exilic, formed among exiles seeking a homeland: "Exiles cross borders, break barriers of thought and experience." • Edward Said
She talks about Carrie Mae Weems, Basquiat, Saar, Amos, Bearden, Lorna Simpson — and asks some of them to speak directly to readers. Her interviewees' gems shine, too:
Dismayed and disgusted with rampant attention to (a chosen few) Black artist's identities, and therefore an utter dearth of criticism, hooks sets out to show 𝘩𝘰𝘸 Black art can and should be reviewed. She rejects the simplistic notion that a critique means personal disrespect or dislike. Rather, she undertakes discussion of specific careers and art pieces in multiple media, interviews and standalone essays to begin to fill the gap she sees.
hooks is interested in the power of photography, as used by everyday Black people, to document beauty and subvert cultural texts: "The camera allowed black folks to combine image-making, resistance struggle, and pleasure."
She examines the role of class as a critical mediator of access and expectations for young people to art. hooks waxes on the gendered reception of men as artists (celebrated for their drive and commitment to their craft) compared to women (constantly siphoning time from other priorities to attend to art, guilty all the while; lacking the material affirmation of their social sphere).
hooks searches pieces for their traces, scratching each palimpsest (she loves this word) for its ancestral echoes. She theorizes the Black artistic tradition as exilic, formed among exiles seeking a homeland: "Exiles cross borders, break barriers of thought and experience." • Edward Said
She talks about Carrie Mae Weems, Basquiat, Saar, Amos, Bearden, Lorna Simpson — and asks some of them to speak directly to readers. Her interviewees' gems shine, too:
- "There are constructive ways of facing tragic, painful experiences." • Alison Saar.
- "The white critic feels safe focusing on the blackness and otherness of the artist instead of learning to look at the art." • Emma Amos
As the seventh book in my author project, this #YearOfBell, hooks' introductions stand out to me, this time: reminiscences on her girlhood and heady declarations about feminism obliquely lead into her thesis, paragraphs later.