Redgrooms /

In this beautifully designed book documenting the art of Red Grooms, the design is aptly developed to exemplify the 50-year career of an artist who made important contributions to the development of pop art, happenings, environmental art, and the participatory nature of contemporary installations. An interview with the artist, Danto's captivating essay on the spirit of comedy in Grooms's work, and hundreds of illustrations produce a sumptuous celebration both visual and verbal. This wonderful book, somewhat unlike Vincent Katz's recently published Red Grooms: The Graphic Work (CH, Nov'01), is an attempt to categorize and document the entire corpus. The difficult task of chronicling sculptures, paintings, films, cartoons, drawings, prints, installations, happenings, environments, photography, and other artistic forms is superbly completed. The works are impeccably reproduced in full color throughout. The book includes a very useful chronology, exhibition and collections list, awards, performances, and film list. Everyone interested in the second half of 20th-century American art will learn from this book. Grooms made an outstanding and always original contribution to that history; this volume is a portable archive of that contribution. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. R. M. Labuz Mohawk Valley Community College

A curator once vividly described Red Grooms as a social historian with a hot glue gun. Famous for large-scale installations created from a variety of media, he combines populist wit with the formal complexity found in elite art; "Ruckus Manhattan," for instance, depicts the whirling energy of everyday life in New York City with unparalleled charm. While there are a number of exhibition catalogs about Grooms, this wonderful text is the first comprehensive monograph in 20 years, exuberantly celebrating Grooms's career and placing his work in broader art historical context. The lush and abundant photos are organized by the major themes in Grooms's art, e.g., city life and portraits of famous figures from sports or the history of Western art. Fellow artist Timothy Hyman perceptively interviews Grooms about his creative processes, while art critics Danto (The Abuse of Beauty) and Marco Livingstone offer interpretative essays that are smart and accessible--much like Grooms's art itself. Danto's philosophically informed exploration of comedy in Grooms's oeuvre is especially noteworthy. Enthusiastically recommended.--Katherine C. Adams, Bowdoin Coll. Lib., Brunswick, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.