True Colors: The Real Life of the Art World

Haden-Guest's gossipy and witty tour of the contemporary art scene, focusing on New York City with forays to California, Paris and elsewhere, probes a fickle art market where trends, connections, galleries and critics make or break reputations. It opens in the late 1960s, as conceptualists, performance artists and surrealists rebel against minimalism; moves through a flurry of movements from neo-expressionism to earthworks and graffiti art; and closes with a report on the 1993 Venice Biennale and a skeptical look at 1990s' developments, including confessional and victim art, ecological, computer and technological art. In a torrent of conversations, interviews, anecdotes, capsule bios and critical asides, Haden-Guest (Bad Dreams), an art and cultural critic who writes for the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, profiles dozens of well-known artists such as Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel, Malcolm Morley, Donald Judd, James Turrell, Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His engaging insider's account will appeal most to those already familiar with this scene. (Nov.)