Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy
Dave Hickey
(Text by (Art/Photo Books))
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Description
"Air Guitar" is Dave Hickey's "memoir without tears"--a journey through the vernacular cultural landscape of the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. Looking back from the vantage-point of his adopted hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, Hickey speculates on everything from jazz and rock-and-roll to basketball and professional wrestling--from magic and psychedelia to gambling and the culture of "little stories"--from automotive design to series television to Saturday-morning cartoons. The emphasis in these twenty-three essays is on the way "the arts" function in the drift of everyday life, outside the venues of official culture, and on singular "lives in the arts, " lived outside those venues, with meditations on the careers of Liberace, Hank Williams, Chet Baker, Andy Warhol, Johnny Mercer, Norman Rockwell, magicians Siegfield & Roy, and wrestler Lady Godiva. Underlying Hickey's writing is an abiding belief that cultural life in a democracy can, and occasionally does function in a democratic manner, sustained by the whims of affection and the commerce of opinion.
Product Details
Price
$19.95
$18.55
Publisher
Art Issues Press
Publish Date
August 02, 1997
Pages
208
Dimensions
6.01 X 9.0 X 0.68 inches | 0.93 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780963726452
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Dave Hickey (1938-2021) was an American art critic and essayist known for his sharp wit and keen eye. His books include The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) and Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1997).