The Invisible Dragon made a lot of noise for a little book When it was originally published in 1993 it was championed by artists for its for...
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Mar 07, 2010
Troy
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I studied with Hickey years ago and it was fantastic. The man is erudite and quick and always ready with a quip or bon mot. When I was his student, his The Invisible Dragon was kicking the shit out of the art world, bellowing that discussing the virtue of an artwork is worthless unless that art work is loved by a constituency.
(For example, the virtue of John Smith's virtuous novel about loving people is irrelevant IF no one likes reading John Smith. For example, a pile of leaves in More...
(For example, the virtue of John Smith's virtuous novel about loving people is irrelevant IF no one likes reading John Smith. For example, a pile of leaves in More...
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Mar 07, 2010
Matt
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As Air Guitar is one of my favorite pieces of criticism, I approached the prospect of reading more of Hickey’s work with enthusiasm bordering on mania. However, while The Invisible Dragon shows Hickeys humor and insight to be as strong as ever, it reads, in some respects, as humorously outdated. With the exception of one piece, the book is primarily a re-print of essays published over 15 years ago – and, as Hickey himself points out in the introduction, they are all concerned with fighting a b
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Aug 07, 2011
Michael
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Hickey is an unparalleled chronicler of America's relationship to art, and in this expanded edition of The Invisible Dragon he argues stringently against institutionalization and in favor of the "art market." Pieces of art, he argues, have value because of the beauty perceived by the beholder, not because some bureaucrat has used it to justify their employment. If it doesn't sell, Hickey argues, it has no reason to exist.
Rarely will you find an art critic attacking the museum system, More...
Rarely will you find an art critic attacking the museum system, More...
May 30, 2008
Beau
rated it:
This is my favourite book. Period. All of human behaviour is described in these pages.
Plus, we learn that Art is not necessarily good for you; that the well-being benifits of Art is a Myth cooked up by Institutions of the Pharmacological Arts, like the LACMA and the Getty, et al...
Plus, we learn that Art is not necessarily good for you; that the well-being benifits of Art is a Myth cooked up by Institutions of the Pharmacological Arts, like the LACMA and the Getty, et al...
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Mar 04, 2011
Topher
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This is the book I wanted Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word to be. Like Wolfe, Hickey locates the creation and exhibition of contemporary art within an institutional context that has radically changed the experience of viewing art since the middle of last century. While Wolfe’s tirade is a fun reactionary rant against the academicizing of art and middlebrow acquisitiveness, Hickey’s deeper essays show us how the “therapeutic” paradigm of art exhibition, with its disdain for the “rhetoric of beauty,”
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Aug 19, 2010
Juliekantor
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I had never seen of heard of most of the art that Hickey references in this book, but he makes very valid points about the state of art in America today that I agree w/ & can understand, as well as how we should interact/react to art.
Art is not untouched by the pitfalls of sexist, racist, classicist bullshit that plagues American society/culture. Hickey looks to beauty as a means to entering art & as relief to "art" being ruined by the galleries & academia, & to modern/ More...
Art is not untouched by the pitfalls of sexist, racist, classicist bullshit that plagues American society/culture. Hickey looks to beauty as a means to entering art & as relief to "art" being ruined by the galleries & academia, & to modern/ More...
Mar 07, 2010
Jeffrey
rated it:
From my column in The Brooklyn Rail:
Transgression and transformation…glamour and authority…both barrels blaze from spitfire art critic and theoretician Dave Hickey. Several searing, essential essays (with a generous foreword) deliberate upon the relationships between the beholder and the beheld.
Beauty is a seditious virtue, difficult and dangerous. Faced with this “threat,” civilization imposes a custodian. But this buffer poses problems and Hickey storms the gate.
T More...
Transgression and transformation…glamour and authority…both barrels blaze from spitfire art critic and theoretician Dave Hickey. Several searing, essential essays (with a generous foreword) deliberate upon the relationships between the beholder and the beheld.
Beauty is a seditious virtue, difficult and dangerous. Faced with this “threat,” civilization imposes a custodian. But this buffer poses problems and Hickey storms the gate.
T More...
Nov 09, 2009
Troy
rated it:
This is a smart book about the nature of beauty and desire and the role of parental organizations in contemporary society.
Hickey's basic premise is that beauty is the agency of visual pleasure. This notion puts Hickey in opposition with a lot of art criticism which is largely concerned with how art is "good for you." Most theorists and scholars are primarily interested in what the art is "saying" -- i.e., interested in art's virtue and ethics but not with its effi More...
Hickey's basic premise is that beauty is the agency of visual pleasure. This notion puts Hickey in opposition with a lot of art criticism which is largely concerned with how art is "good for you." Most theorists and scholars are primarily interested in what the art is "saying" -- i.e., interested in art's virtue and ethics but not with its effi More...
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Jun 24, 2009
This book is a slow read. Mainly because just about every two pages Hickey drops some idea on you that makes you want to stop reading, take a walk and ponder. Or maybe I am a slow read. I love it!
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Mar 17, 2009
Zach
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Finally being released next month. My 4th-generation photocopy is getting grubby. Maybe the best book of criticism I've ever read.
Dec 17, 2009
Kristen
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Way back in my NYU days I took a lot of classes on art... this book is one of the few that I kept. Dave Hickey rolls Mapplethorpe and Caravaggio up into an argument about the democratic nature of art and beauty and the role that institutions play in (unnecessarily?) regulating our desire for beauty. Definitely had to pull out the dictionary several times - Hickey's vocabulary (or thesaurus skillz) are astonishing - but I found the essays to be extraordinarily thought-provoking. Not that I wa
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Jul 31, 2008
Christopherseelie
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I had to read these essays a couple times. Hickey would probably claim that it is because Beauty is absent from current art criticism. If his book wasn't so hard to get a hold of, I would say there is no reason for anyone interested in Aesthetics to have not read The Invisible Dragon. It is erudite, compelling, and short.
The best review I can give this book is that I have gained insight into the way one approaches a work of art. And while Hickey will never convince me to reject Picasso, he More...
The best review I can give this book is that I have gained insight into the way one approaches a work of art. And while Hickey will never convince me to reject Picasso, he More...
Jun 21, 2007
Pablo
rated it: 
Maybe the caravaggio/maplethorpe thing is a bit much, but I still thing for this book which is maybe as much about the writing as it is about the copy that once passed over my desk when I worked at Powell's. It was an ex-libris from the Harvard library and someone had gone a little nutso with the big HARVARD stamp—front, back, inside, outside—and, best of all, big and red straight across Helmut's butt (or is it Helmut's fist?) on the reproduction of Maplethorpe's "Helmut and Brooks."
May 15, 2007
Judith
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Published before Air Guitar and near impossible to find, these four essays on beauty are more esoteric and academic than Hickey's later writings. In a way, they're also more enjoyable. These essays are not spectacles so much as they are very adroit observations. Before you condemn Hickey for Air Guitar, put your nose between these pages.
Mar 07, 2011
Meghan
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This book smells good. I know because I not-so-clandestinely sniffed it when turning a page. Page-sniffer.
Nov 08, 2010
Michael
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So good! I feel like I've been waiting to read this and had no idea. Dave Hickey speaks in such a straightforward way, cutting through centuries of academic bullshit to make a very persuasive argument. His ideas on contemporary art inspired so many "YES, YES, EXACTLY!" moments - and a whole lotta dog-eared pages
Dec 17, 2009
Paul
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Hickey's prose sets off fireworks in the mind. Who else causes you to ponder the "queasy, necrophilic subtext" of Caravaggio's The Incredulity of St Thomas?
Sep 29, 2008
Neil
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Dave breaks down beauty and why burning museums are a good idea in this one.
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