cover image Secret Lives in Art: Essays on Art, Literature, Performance

Secret Lives in Art: Essays on Art, Literature, Performance

Jill Johnston. Chicago Review Press, $16.95 (232pp) ISBN 978-1-55652-232-1

Johnston (Paper Daughter) is a critic we need more of: she's willing to take strong stands, incapable of fudging or toeing lines. She writes straightforwardly and with energy, keeping in mind the undeniable place of the critic's self in any piece of criticism-just as she admits artists' lives as grist for her critical evaluations. Refreshingly, and unlike many reviewers, Johnston also crosses boundaries between genres: painting (Robert Rauschenberg), performance art (Charlotte Moorman) and dance (Karole Armitage) are all considered in this new collection of essays from 1984 to 1994, the bulk of which were originally published in Art in America or the New York Times Book Review. But her most consuming subject may be Johnston's own sensibility, which seems admirably independent of critical or journalistic factions or formulas. The ``political act of self-recognition'' that entered into her sense of her writing continues to motivate the critic now as a viewer, a feminist and a lesbian. Outstanding pieces include ``Fictions of the Self in the Making,'' a useful introduction to her point of view; and ``How Dance Artists and Critics Define Dance as Political,'' a critical assessment of dance criticism. (Nov.)