A discursive look at the ongoing transformation of the American
landscape. Art critic Lippard (Mixed Blessings, not reviewed, etc.)
posits that Americans are rapidly losing their sense of place and
their local loyalties as a result of the country's fin-de-siecle
homogenization, courtesy of look-alike Walmarts and McDonald's,
strip malls and housing developments, and thanks as well to hybrid
cultural styles that see a new Trump luxury hotel in downtown New
York augured in by practitioners of the Chinese art of feng shui,
or geomancy. Lippard writes with undisguised nostalgia for a
different, more historically aware America; at the top of each text
page runs a journal of her life in the little town of Georgetown,
Me., where such virtues presumably still obtain. Recognizing that
regionalism is a cultural invention and as such somewhat
artificial, she explores the possibilities for place-based public
art that "has both roots and reach" and that honors local history
and mores. She also looks into the prospects for preserving that
older, idiomatic, vernacular America while allowing that, given
their druthers, most people would often rather build for the future
than maintain the past. (Only lack of money keeps them from doing
so, she writes, quoting a colleague who observes that "poverty is a
wonderful preservative of the past.") Some of her themes - for
instance, "alienated displacement" and "the possibility of a
multicentered society," whatever that is - grow a little wearisome
as they are repeated throughout the text. But on the whole
Lippard's narrative is interesting and thoughtful, and her
critiques are often delightfully acidic, especially when she deals
with enervating planned suburbs and gated communities and the
monstrosities that pass for public art today. The more than 150
illustrations in color and black-and-white complement and extend
her discussion very nicely. A solid contribution to popular
geography. (Kirkus Reviews)
In" The Lure of the Local" Lucy R. Lippard weaves together
cultural studies, history, geography, and contemporary art to
provide a fascinating examination of our multiple senses of
place.
Divided into five parts--Around Here; Manipulating Memory; Down
to Earth: Land Use; The Last Frontiers: Cities and Suburbs; and
Looking Around--the book extends far beyond the confines of the art
worlds, including issues of community, land use, perceptions of
nature, how we produce the landscape, and how the landscape affects
our lives. Praised by critics and readers alike, she consistently
makes unexpected connections between contemporary art and its
political, social, and cultural contexts.
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