Art on My Mind - by Bell Hooks (Paperback)

About the Book

A response to the dearth of critical writing by African Americans, this book represents hooks' response to the dialogues about producing, exhibiting and criticizing art that characterize an art world obsessed with identity politics. The author positions her critiques of art and visual politics within the question of how art can be an empowering and revolutionary force within the black community.

Book Synopsis

"As erudite and sophisticated as hooks is, she is also eminently readable, even exhilarating." -Booklist In Art on My Mind, bell hooks, a leading cultural critic, responds to the ongoing dialogues about producing, exhibiting, and criticizing art and aesthetics in an art world increasingly concerned with identity politics. Always concerned with the liberatory black struggle, hooks positions her writings on visual politics within the ever-present question of how art can be an empowering and revolutionary force within the black community.

Review Quotes

"In an art world obsessed with identity politics, Art on My Mind is a long-overdue rescue of the liberating, rather than confining, power of art." --Paper Magazine "Passionate and highly personal." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "Sharp and persuasive." --The New York Times Book Review "[Art on My Mind] is a guide to the ways that political meaning and esthetic pleasure may be discovered, bound together, in many works by contemporary artists of color." --Art America "[hooks] brings a welcome clarity to such issues as received art and the development of a Western canon." --San Francisco Examiner

"In an art world obsessed with identity politics, Art on My Mind is a long-overdue rescue of the liberating, rather than confining, power of art." -Paper Magazine "Passionate and highly personal." -Publishers Weekly, starred review "Sharp and persuasive." -The New York Times Book Review "[Art on My Mind] is a guide to the ways that political meaning and esthetic pleasure may be discovered, bound together, in many works by contemporary artists of color." -Art America "[hooks] brings a welcome clarity to such issues as received art and the development of a Western canon." -San Francisco Examiner

About the Author

bell hooks (1952-2021) was the author of over thirty books, including the feminist classic Ain't I a Woman, the memoir Bone Black, the New York Times bestselling All About Love, and Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (The New Press).