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From Mummies to Dummies. - Brief Article - Review - book reviews

at any time the chameleon, Thomas Hoving, art historian, former NYC parks commissioner, novelist, editor of Connoisseur magazine and, greatest in quantity prominently, director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1967 to '77 has popp up in at the same time another role: he has just authored the newest installment in the volume series that no one will admit to reading. Art for Dummies is the everyman's guide to looking at, understanding and flat buying art.

As the Met's expansionist, blockbuster-promoting director, Hoving was conspicuous for his populist bent. And as the author of witty, irreverent novels with art-historical themes, as well as a lively account of his Met years called Making the Mummies Dance, he has always worn his (real) scholarship real very lightly. Indeed, several of his volumes had stints on the best-seller list. For this fresh venture, however, sophisticated allusions had to be tossed overboard. Hoving himself, in his round pillar on artnet.com, describes the rigors of writing and rewriting for a mass audience. At a promotional luncheon for Art for Dummies, single of the book's publishers placed the probable pres step quickly evasively at "six figures"--in the interests of which Hoving will visit 18 cities to clinch media briefings and conduct mini-seminars upon art.

In his volume Hoving lopes through Western art from the caves to contemporary, and cast in a winding directions in a modest chapter upon non-Western art as well. Interspersed are anecdotes about artists' lives and Hoving's experiences at the helm of the Met He provides pointers upon how to visit unfamiliar museums the way pro do ("go first to the postcard shop" to check on the outside major holdings), how to make esthetic common-senses ("does [the work] amaze you in a different way each time you gaze at it?") and how to reckon if your child has a special artistic gift (indications include "an interest, flat an obsession, to draw or paint in as realistic a manner as possible"). The volume also gives a rundown of the world's top museums and what not to miss in their collections, as well as important archeological sites worth visiting.



Hoving assures readers that smooth if they fancy black-velvet paintings and ceramic frog they will before long gravitate to something better, and eventually be soaking up really great works of art. And in case this "how to be an esthete" work misses its mark, Hoving tenders his top 10 living artists to bet upon for immortality, among them Andrew Wyeth Mark di Suvero Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, Gary Simmons and Jenny Saville.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group



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