Ad Reinhardt [Tapa dura]

This is a truly awful book from start to finish. There are easily more factual errors in it than there are pages and the whole book is a case study in bad faith with its readers.

Try to look up a quote and it isn't there. For instance: I wanted to find a quote attribued to Reinhardt on page 12 . A footnote leads to "statement in exhibition catalogue. Betty Parsons Gallery New York 31 October - 9 November 1949, n.p." but having located the exhibition catalogue it turns out no such statement is to be found in the catalogue and the date is off too. Same thing on p. 58. I wanted to read the attack on Reinhardt in the Daily Worker that Corris reports as 1943. Not much information to go on when trying to locate an article in a daily newspaper. Turns out it isn't in 1943 at all but 1942, April 21, p.7 to be exact. And the article is not attacking Reinhardt's painting as the author reports but the artist's writing, his "gaga beliefs about art" which in mocking the Stalinist party line on social realism means "bad political practice."

Even the most conscientious scholar can make a mistake or two but in such a short book to find multiple irregularities on so many of its pages suggests whatever the author is playing at is no accident. The editors must have been asleep at the switch on this one.

A total waste of time and money. I returned the copy I purchased.

Anyone looking for accurate and reliable information about the life and work of the painter Ad Reinhardt would do well to avoid this silly and misleading book written by a conceptual artist. In attempting to follow up on the biographical information provided in this book, I found an extraordinary number of factual errors: inaccurate dates, inaccurate descriptions, inaccurate quotations, and inaccurate citations. By the third sentence of this book, the author Michael Corris declares that he is going to base his arguments on "marginalia". Given such a limited focus, it is particularly surprising that the author can't get his facts straight. It is an open question whether the errors in scholarship that pervade this book result from sloppy and inept research or if it is the product of an underlying ideological bias. Either way, the publication of a book with such a blatant disregard for fact checking of source material does a great disservice to both its readers and its subject.

I respect both Ad Reinhardt and Michael Corris. It is an auspicious pairing despite the fact that "conceptual art" can be a most abusive practice as both art and criticism. But Mr. Corris can and does deliver the real deal regardless that his thesis is controversial. He addresses Ad Reinhardt's far leftist politics, from the 1930's and 1940's. The book covers previously uncelebrated graphics using a fresh interpretation to persuade us to think differently about the time that really matters most in Reinhardt's career, the 1950's and 1960's. He was born Adolf Frederick Reinhardt in 1913. (Hence, "Ad".) We are asked to consider Ad's early, doctrinaire, communist political affiliations as critical in understanding his mature work and ultimately, his mature career in New York. The book addresses Reinhardt's relatively lesser status and critical appreciation within the abstract art pantheon and it offers reasons for a deeper appreciation for his art and its influences.

For Corris, and potential readers, it is in the illumination of early biographical depth that adds a new dimension to our subject. Evidence includes Reinhardt's ideological support of Russia that was so deep as not to be significantly reduced by rumors and reports regarding Stalin's pogroms, the mass incarcerations, ruthless violence, death from extensive famines and constant intimidation committed by Stalin against his own people. But he was not the only one. In fact, The New Republic was very slow in turning against Stalin. However, Corris reads this as evidence of Reinhardt's rather extreme ideological dedication. He also argues that there was a price to be paid for it later in New York. I do see the rigidity remaining later in Reinhardt's personal convictions regarding the correctness of his thoughts and convictions. Reinhardt was not in the least intimidated in print nor slow to bite possibly the hand that fed him.

Both an artist and writer, Corris' credentials in conceptual art in particular are not only authentic, they are impressive. You might also like to read Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth, and Practice by Corris.

This book may not be as interesting for the first time reader about Reinhardt and his art. It is not intended to be. The author's assumption is that you will already be familiar with them. No art is illustrated. This book is intended for scholars and those who already have a sufficient amount of specialized knowledge on the subject, the times, his language and the various art movements. I would also be sympathetic to those readers who reject the book's thesis as reductionist but that statement itself is far too simplistic. This is a serious book. You likely will find little to dispute in seeing Reinhardt's influence upon Minimalism and Conceptual Art or to reverse the arrows, the influence of his thoughts upon critics in his day. Corris included an interesting insight regarding cultural and feminist critic, Lucy Lippard's early development. (If you own her book on Reinhardt, you have a very valuable publication Ad Reinhardt.)

Reinhardt was very critical, whether about corrupt systems in politics and economies or about of them in the art establishment and the superficiality around art he made his life's work (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.)

For those new to his art, welcome and enjoy. Finding supplemental sources to help here is not difficult. Reinhardt's own missives, memorable quotes as well as his own articulate writing about art should be considered welcome discoveries and points of departure all of their own. For more by and about Ad Reinhardt, you might consider beginning with, Art as Art: The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art) as well as Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts).