cover image Bomb: Interviews

Bomb: Interviews

. City Lights Books, $10.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-87286-261-6

Conceived at the outset of the 1980s as a cutting-edge arts magazine with a heavy slant toward the downtown Manhattan scene, Bomb is eclectic in its focus, an eclecticism that is reflected in this 10th anniversary collection. Eschewing the participation of journalists in the interview process, Bomb publisher Sussler and her editors conceived of ``interviews between peers, writers and artists, about what it is to make art.'' The result is wildly uneven, as befits the magazine's risk-taking nature. For example, the dialogue between visual artists Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger is a pretentious nullity (particularly disappointing because Kruger's art is so astute and verbal), but the discussion of photography between Duane Michals and David Seidner is scintillating, especially when they touch on the ontology of their chosen medium. The give-and-take between painters Georgia Marsh and David Salle is refreshingly funny, and Kathy Bates and Michael O'Keefe are amusingly candid about the tribulations of film acting. The best moments in the book occur when a subject offers an unforced confession, as in Salman Rushdie's self-definition, ``I suppose I am a lapsed Muslim.'' Illustrations not seen by PW. (Jan.)