Imagined Museums examines the intertwined politics surrounding art and modernization in Morocco from 1912 to the present by considering the structure of the museum not only as a modern institution but also as a national monument to modernity; asking what happens when museum monuments start to crumble.
#2273060 in eBooks 2011-02-06 2011-02-06File Name: B00416C4IU
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful drawings of celebrities.....By FargoThis is an interesting book done by a celebrity portrait artist. I liked how the artist wrote what it was like to draw the sitters with each of his portraits. If you like Don Bachardys work I reccomend purchasing his "Hollywood" book as a companion to this book.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating accounts of making honest. unflattering drawingsBy Stephen O. MurrayThis book showcases Bachardy drawings and his journal account of the sittings with. primarily. aging movie stars he admired as an adolescent in the late-1940s along with some later stars (Jack Nicholson. Charlotte Rampling. Mia Farrow. Maggie Smith). the official portrait of Jerry Brown for the California state capitol. and some other artists (Robert Mapplethorpe. Aaron Copland. Iris Murdoch. Julian Schnabel. James Merrill) and directors Vincente Minnelli and William Wyler. The responses of the subjects to the drawings are usually very interesting. with greater paranoia on the part of other visual artists than of the aging movie stars.The best stories are in the sittings with Ginger Rogers. Bette Davis. Jack Nicholson. Robert Mapplethorpe. and Louise Brooks. The accounts of those "stars" in whom I have no particular interest (Alice Faye. Ruby Keeler. Helmut Newton) contained insights (both from sitter and portraitist) and Bachardys prose shows the admirable qualities of those whom I hoped would display them (Ingrid Bergman. Myrna Loy. Maggie Smith. Iris Murdoch. Louise Brooks. Henry Fonda. James Merrill. Barbara Stanwyck. Olivia de Havilland. Alec Guiness. Laurence Olivier). The only one whom he comes to despise in the course of the interactions of drawing a portrait is Joan Fontaine. He remains a fan of most and gives even the devil (Miss Fontaine) her due.The drawings are never flattering and the artist does not flatter himself either. but I find it interesting to read about a professional doing his or her job professionally. The reader gets a very good idea of what it is like to try to portray honestly movie stars and other cultural icons. as well as getting the portraits. Most of his subjects are interesting (not least in their insecurities) people and I look forward to the eventual publication of his diaries from half a century at the edges of Hollywood ) encountering a stream of writers. artists. and film stars.3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. The Pleasures and Follies of CelebrityBy Robert HavensI confess that my curiosity about this book was initially piqued not by the artist himself but rather by Bachardys long term "marriage" to Christopher Isherwood. a writer I very much admire and whose now fully published extensive series of diaries chronicle in great detail and with large measures of both angst and bliss the ups and downs of their paring. There is relatively little in this book that sheds the younger partners light upon this enduring relationship between two men who stayed together in spite of a thirty year age gap between them. but Bachardys references to Isherwood in the text (written long after the writers death in 1986) are almost invariably warm and full of gratitude. Beyond that. I do think that Bachardy is a very talented portraitist and Ive enjoyed scrutinizing (and will probably on occasion in the future revisit) these skillful. often rather unflattering drawings. which are well reproduced in this University of Wisconsin Press edition. The artist over time has developed a very idiosyncratic working method: for example. the drawings were almost always completed in a single sitting of no more than a few hours and the subject was strongly urged--importuned even--to sign the completed sketch (or sketches--some subjects had multiple portraits drawn in as many sittings). Bachardy. of course. retained the drawings for his own purposes. My chief objection to the book is its star-crossed tone. and ethos. While he is at pains to describe in the text how ordinary these luminaries turned out to be as he first pursued each ones permission and then eventually managed to capture each on paper. he nonetheless comes off as something of a trophy hunter and gossip. But I would still recommend the book to anyone interested.in Bacardys work.
