let's have a thread about Dave Hickey because The Invisible Dragon is the best book about art written in the last twenty years and Air Guitar is the most fun

or maybe it's the other way around, in any case I fucking love this guy but I wish his stuff was easier to come by instead of losers like me buying Mary Heilmann monographs off amazon just to see what he has to say about her (okay and also because she is A+). He is writing for Art In America since last October and his little two page thing is always the best thing in it, some fucker just stole three issues from the library and I want them so bad so I can re-read. Re-reading this guy is such a joy, because for writing that comes across as so tossed off, so casual, its so tightly woven and suggestive. I'd love to grab a beer with this guy because I'll bet I could listen to him for hours, you can't really say that about Roberta Smith or Robert Storr now can you.

This thread marks the 13th time I've taken Air Guitar out of the library.

RIP.

Dave Hickey, the critic whose best-selling book "Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy" is arguably the most influential work of art criticism of the last quarter-century, has died at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., at 82. A full obituary will follow.

— Christopher Knight (@KnightLAT) November 20, 2021

A friend bought me Air Guitar a few years back but I still haven't read it. He's great in the Warhol "American Masters," and Greil Marcus thought highly of him.

https://greilmarcus.net/2014/07/08/dave-hickeys-air-guitar-essays-on-art-and-democracy-1997/

I read a book of his called Perfect Wave, after either Marcus or Christgau recommended it (I think Hickey's earliest writing was rock criticism). He came across as brilliant, but so aloof it left me with a feeling of... cruelty, almost? I don't remember the insights, just this aristocratic hipster tone.

Air Guitar is not aloof. He's got a sharp eye, for art and audiences, a basic statement being that I believes in the Evolutionary Theory of art, not Creationist: thinks the canvas or stage or recording is just the beginning, the launching pad: thus playing air guitar is part of the creative process and experience. So is writing about the arts. This collection includes a particularly exhilarated response to catching Siegfried and Roy's act (Hickey was in rez at University of Nevada/Las Vegas, got around town and state from time to time). But really the main thing is, he just loves to write, and can make me think of the parts of Moby Dick when Ishmael is just swimming and diving through his whale research, also his love of seafaring, and the more Melville I read, the more likely I am to relate Melville's buzz passages to Hickey's.
If anything, he's maybe a little too self-delighted at times (J.Hoberman reviewed a doc he appeared in, mentioned Hickey laughing at his own jokes---haven't heard any interviews where he does just that, but can imagine---worth it though, he was a good talker too)(some tweets came off a bit lofty, but tweets can be hard on conveying anything substantial).

that *he* believes, jeez sorry

Wrote just a little bit about music for the Voice in 70s, told Fresh Air, I think t was that he and Tosches and Bangs used to stand outside CBGB betting on the next person to emerge with bleeding ears. A skaterboi named Marvin, I think, would sometimes show up in his pieces long enough to observe, for instance, that critics would be saying how brave and poignant was the line, "I'm not tryin' to come on Hollywood, but Hollywood is what I am," if it appeared in a song by Neil Young, rather than its actual author, Randy Bachman (also Marvin talks up The New Mundanity, like collections of Kiwanis gumball machines).
Hickey also appears in Marshall Chapman's memoirs: during her era of having a thing for "pear-shaped speed freaks, " he is indeed her boyfriend and traveling with her and band, trying to turn the Southern boondocks on to proto-alt.country rock, but not like the Eagles, and, as Hickey recalled, trying to find syndicated Perry Mason re-runs on motel TV, because the cast was like a band.
He wrote songs from time to time "Calgary Snow," recorded by Bobby Bare, is fairly deep w the details and vibe, also "Oscar and Billy," recorded by Jim Dickinson, is about Oscar Wilde touring the Wild West, which he did, and meeting Billy The Kid (maybe he did).

Also a collection of short stories, Prior Convictions, which I've got somewhere, haven't read, with appealing customer reviews on Amazon.

Candid take on his buddy Waylon Jennings: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/his-mickey-mouse-ways/

Excellent use of second person narration!

very nice

loved AG. I think I lent my copy out and never got it back