Word: artists
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first three songs center entirely around artistic themes: the boundaries of art, the line between good and bad taste and the difficult process towards fame. But where "drinking artist" introduces the anxiety of the artist, "straddle" carries that anxiety a little too far. "Straddle" is in the same languorous style as "drinking artist," with a slow snare gently accompanying the single guitar. Prodhumme enters with a more pronounced whine to exclaim that "it comes with it/much more than you know/beyond sarcasm/how much do you know?" A little anxious to be taken seriously? Definitely...
Even though Fuck often tries too hard to prove--with lyrics that are annoyingly bitter and whiny--that they are more than just a dirty word (after all, you made your own bed, Fuck), Fuck's music isn't always depressive. As the album progresses away from self-reflective artist anxiety, the music becomes a gigantic toybasket of styles. "Monkey-doll" is a Beatles-esque, upbeat true story of Fuck's tours with a stuffed monkey (rumour has it that Fuck never performs without a pile of stuffed animals covering the stage). "Italy" is a beautiful love ballad evoking images...
...hyper-consuming New York art world of the 1980s. After chalking up Basquiat's success to the happenstance of being in the right trendy scene at the right time and the prevalence of the art world's "reverse racism" (whatever that means), the book seems to revel in the artist's self-destruction and subsequent "fall from grace." Blending descriptions of the decadence of the New York affluent with block quotes from people who claim to have been close to Basquiat, the biography at least succeeds in giving a reader a sense of the hypocricy and egoism that must have...
Even through Hoban's bizarre, vulgar-Freudian analysis of Basquiat's artistic ambition as a misplaced search for his father's approval, the meaning of Wright's quote is clear. The danger that Wright refers to is not the danger that Hoban depicts through stories of Basquiat's drug-induced tantrums and unprofessionalism. The danger that Wright speaks of is embodied more in Basquiat's work than in his own damaged body. Hoban lacks the critical eye or artistic sophistication necessary to do any close reading of Basquiat's work. Often, when the opportunity presents itself, because a piece...
...Basquiat worked early in his career with Keith Haring, and briefly dated Madonna. Warhol does not appear as a major figure in the biography until page 200 or so. In addition, Hoban makes it clear that by the time Basquiat gained access to Warhol, he was already a developed artist and well-connected...