Today I'm discussing Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Kent State
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Core Program 2010/2011
This is the latest book report. It's the book published for the Core Program from the 2010/2011 class. I wrote about this group of Core fellow's art show in 2016 here. Here are some links to the artists mentioned here:
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Meditations in an Emergency
This book,Meditations in an Emergency
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: I Want You
This episode of my ongoing series (which will continue at least until I get a new day job) is aboutI Want You
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Robert Boyd's Book report: Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Pop Art
Today's book report is onMel Ramos: 50 Years of Pop Art
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Alice Neel Painted Truths
Today I review another book that is mostly pictures, Alice Neel: Painted Truths
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: The Art of Resistance
This week I am reporting on The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Time of the Magicians
My book report is about Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Artforum
It's not a report about the magazine Artforum, but about the book of short stories by César Aira called Artforum
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Museum of Terror: Tomie volume 1
Today I look at a horror manga called Museum of Terror, Vol. 1
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Robyn O'Neil Reading Stuff
Many of my readers are probably aware of artist Robyn O'Neil. O'Neil is an artist who I think of as a Texas artist, but she's actually from Nebraska and now lives in Washington State. She does large, spare drawings. She is one of the remarkable group of artists who studied at Texas A&M Commerce. She had been a student of the estimable Lee Baxter Davis, who also taught Georganne Deen, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Lawrence Lee, and Gary Panter. I've always found that confluence of art students (obviously over a longish period of time) and one great art professor at an obscure school in a small Texas town to be amazing.
O'Neil has had lots of exhibits in Texas, including a museum show last year at the Fort Worth Modern. I didn't see it, which I regret. But she did have a solo exhibit through Deasil (the roving successor to one of my favorite galleries, Art Palace) in 2018 in Houston, which I did see and which I loved. As you can see if you click through, one of O'Neil's subjects is rough-hewn headstones.
Robyn O'Neill, It Could Have Been Worse, graphite on paper, 2013
I follow her on Twitter, and a week or so ago, she posted this image:
She said that she had turned it into cards which one could order from her website, so I went to her website and ordered two.
It was there that I discovered she does a book podcast called Me Reading Stuff. She refers to her podcast as "show and tell." She doesn't so much as describe or judge the works she's reading as just read them with a little bit of introduction. She talks a lot about her own day to day life as well. It's weirdly compelling, and she does a really good job of it. She mostly reads poems but occasionally reads prose pieces. I've been dipping into it for the past couple of days.
You can see why I would be interested in this given my own recent project of doing "book reports". But as far as I can tell, she's been doing it since 2015 and has done hundreds of them. She has a smooth delivery that I envy. (In general, when I listen to podcasts, I am always envious of podcasters smooth, unruffled deliveries. Anyone who watches one of my book reports gets to see me stumble on words, mispronounce names, and fruitlessly search for the right word...) And it's not smooth like a newscaster--it always comes off as if she was a friend talking to you on the phone about some poem she liked--it's personal and warm.
I sent her a note saying how I liked that she, a visual artist, had this obvious affinity for a totally different art form and how that kind of cross-medium linkage seemed rare in the local art scene. (Which might be an unfair judgment on my part--maybe those linkages exist, but I just don't see them.) And she wrote back the following:
AMEN!!! Yeah there are a number of my Heroes who adhere to the notion of researching outside your own field. It’s just more powerful that way. If someone asked me to do an art podcast with them (and they have), I say that I have zero interest. A food podcast? Sure! An accounting podcast-ok! But art? Nope. I can’t wait to check your book reports!! Thank you for subscribing to the podcast-it’s my real love.
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: It Has Only Just Begun
This book, It Has Only Just Begun, is basically a pamphlet published by Printed Matter. It contains a panel discussion held at the Art Book Fair from 2008. The introduction is by A.A. Bronson, the interviewer is Hans Ulrich Olbrich, and the interview is with Joseph Grigely and Rirkrit Titavanija.
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: The American Mainstream
Matt Seneca is one of the hosts of the podcast, Comic Books Are Burning in Hell and has written for The Comics Journal. Unfortunately, The American Mainstream appears to be sold out, but perhaps Seenca will print some more.I have written in the past about Jack Kirby, but not about Wally Wood or Elex Toth.
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Yves the Provocateur
This week I read Yves the Provocateur: Yves Klein and Twentieth-Century Art
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Haiku
Today's book report is about Haiku, written by Diane di Prima and illustrated by George Herms. Haiku was published by X Artists' Books, which has it's own interesting story.
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Pinko Joe
This video is about Pinko Joe, by Christopher Sperandio. Sperandio has made guest appearances on this blog on several occasions. He is a professor at Rice University and frequently partners with English artist Simon Grennan on projects--including a remarkable series of comics. (I wish I could link to a place where one can buy these comics, but I don't find any such place on the internet--Chris and Simon, you need to correct this!) They have an excellent blog about their partnership, but I wish it included a shop. I reviewed Simon's solo graphic novel Dispossession a while back and I'm glad to be able to do the same for Sperandio.
(Also, please note that in the video, I fault Sperandio for not giving credit to the original artists whose work he appropriated. However, he did--on page 92 of Pinko Joe. he lists the issues of old comics he used as raw material and, where possible, credited the artists. For the record, the artists were Fred Guardineer, Ralph Mayo, Alex Schomburg,Louis Zansky, Leonard Starr, Murphy Anderson and Jim McLaughlin. And work from three comics where he could not identify the artists.)
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: The Outlaw Bible of American Art
Today I am discussing The Outlaw Bible of American Art
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Grip
Today's book report is about Grip by Lale Westvind. I found out about this book from the podcast Comic Books Are Burning in Hell, where they ranked the then unfinished work as one of the 10 best comics of 2020.
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: Tears of the Trufflepig
Today I talk about Tears of the Trufflepig
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Robert Boyd's Book Report: The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader
Today I look at The Super-Fun-Pak Comix Reader by Ruben Bolling. This is a collection of occasional strips that run in his weekly comic strip called Tom the Dancing Bug, which can be read online in variousplaces. One thing I didn't mention in the video is that I read ever single page of this book on the can. It turns out that an anthology of clever but light-hearted short comics is a prefect counterpart to shitting. Who knew?
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