Reviews

These two erudite catalogs, accompanying summer exhibitions on opposite coasts, look beyond the diverse contemporary works in the shows to examine pop-cultural and social manifestations of their related themes. If, as one writer here suggests, "Freud's case studies stand alongside the best of Poe," then Gothic's ruminations on our romanticized notions of the strange, horrific, and violent are the perfect complement to Rugoff's dissection of our mania for clinical forensics. Gothic is the more systematic in its endeavor to bring in non-art expressions; noted scholars and critics offer very readable chapters on the gothic novel, the gothic spirit in rock music, "Industrial Gothic," early gothic films, and the current cinematic revival. An introductory essay discusses the art in the show, while a short story by Dennis Cooper and "Reflections on the Grotesque" by Joyce Carol Oates round out the text. In addition to film stills and other documentary illustrations, fine color plates of around 50 works by some of the last decade's biggest names‘Cindy Sherman, Gary Simmons, and Robert Gober among them‘are sprinkled throughout the book. Rugoff takes on a more specialized topic, what he calls the "forensic aesthetic," and though his time frame is greater‘encompassing art from the last 30 years‘he has limited his study to California-based artists. Intertwining such themes as "forensic photography, deteriorated architecture, and the banalization of melodrama," the three essays here will be more challenging to the lay reader. Again, leading names‘Baldessari, Nauman, Ruscha‘are among the 36 artists included here. Gothic is highly recommended to both public and academic libraries with an interest in either cultural studies or contemporary art. Scene will make an excellent complement in academic art libraries.‘Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"