Michael Kimmelman Bücher

Was bereichert unser Leben? Michael Kimmelman hat darauf eine Antwort gefunden. Die Protagonisten seines Buches geben Alles für die Kunst. Ein glänzender Band - unvergleichlich leicht und persönlich geschrieben. Sie alle verbindet eines - die leidenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit Kunst. In seinem Buch stellt uns Michael Kimmelman zum einen weltberühmte Künstler wie Pierre Bonnard oder Matthew Barney vor, zum anderen weniger bekannte wie Jay DeFeo, die jahrelang nur von Brandy und Zigaretten lebte, um ein tonnenschweres Gemälde fertigzustellen, oder Michael Heizer, der die meiste Zeit seines Lebens in der Wüste von Nevada verbrachte, um bis zum Zustand völliger Erschöpfung an überdimensionalen Skulpturen zu arbeiten. Vor allem aber erzählt Kimmelman mit tiefer Sympathie von passionierten Amateuren, deren Werke in keinem der großen Museen der Welt zu finden sind - deren Leben aber gleichwohl zu einer Art Kunstwerk wurde: Bob Ross zum Beispiel, der in seinem Fernsehmalkurs „The Joy of Painting“ mit seiner sanften Stimme Millionen Menschen in den Schlaf redete - und ganz nebenbei dazu brachte, selbst zum Pinsel zu greifen. Alles für die Kunst ist kein Buch für Kunstexperten, sondern ein traumwandlerisch leicht geschriebener Essay, der in zehn Kapiteln ganz und gar persönlich davon erzählt, wie sehr Kunst unser Leben bereichert.

This cultural, architectural, and historical guide presents twenty walks around New York, crafted by the NYT chief architecture critic during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, as the city paused, Michael Kimmelman reached out to architects, historians, writers, engineers, and city planners, inviting them to lead him on walks. Familiar with the city, he sought solace in these strolls, believing they could serve as a public good by offering distraction, consolation, and joy during uncertain times. The series began on 42nd Street, amidst Broadway's darkened theaters, and evolved into a broader commentary on urban life when many speculated about the decline of cities. The walks, along with interviews with his guides, became a testament to New York's resilience. Accompanied by over one hundred stunning photographs taken during the shutdown, the work showcases the city's enduring beauty and inspiration amid trauma. Each route is designed for both locals and visitors, highlighting not just streets but also the architectural details and public art throughout. Reflecting on the island's past and its evolution through various historical phases, this guide offers a thoughtful and vibrant portrait of New York City, reaffirming its promise to the millions who call it home.

A New York Times bestseller—a dazzling and inspirational survey of how art can be found and appreciated in everyday lifeMichael Kimmelman, the prominent New York Times writer and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, is known as a deep and graceful writer across the disciplines of art and music and also as a pianist who understands something about the artist's sensibility from the inside. Readers have come to expect him not only to fill in their knowledge about art but also to inspire them to think about connections between art and the larger world - which is to say, to think more like an artist. Kimmelman's many years of contemplating and writing about art have brought him to this wise, wide-ranging, and long-awaited book.It explores art as life's great passion, revealing what we can learn of life through pictures and sculptures and the people who make them. It assures us that art - points of contact with the exceptional that are linked straight to the heart - can be found almost anywhere and everywhere if only our eyes are opened enough to recognize it. Kimmelman regards art, like all serious human endeavors, as a passage through which a larger view of life may come more clearly into focus. His book is a kind of adventure or journey.It carries the message that many of us may not yet have learned how to recognize the art in our own lives. To do so is something of an art itself. A few of the characters Kimmelman describes, like Bonnard and Chardin, are great artists. But others are explorers and obscure obsessives, paint-by-numbers enthusiasts, amateur shutterbugs, and collectors of strange odds and ends. Yet others, like Charlotte Solomon, a girl whom no one considered much of an artist but who secretly created a masterpiece about the world before her death in Auschwitz, have reserved spots for themselves in history, or not, with a single work that encapsulates a whole life.Kimmelman reminds us of the Wunderkammer, the cabinet of wonders - the rage in seventeenth-century Europe and a metaphor for the art of life. Each drawer of the cabinet promises something curious and exotic, instructive and beautiful, the cabinet being a kind of ideal, self-contained universe that makes order out of the chaos of the world. The Accidental Masterpiece is a kind of literary Wunderkammer, filled with lively surprises and philosophical musings. It will inspire readers to imagine their own personal cabinet of wonders.

Kniha představuje soubor deseti samostatných esejů, v nichž se Michael Kimmelman, americký teoretik a kritik umění, zamýšlí nad rolí umění v lidském životě, a to nejen z perspektivy individuálních umělců, nýbrž i „obyčejného“ diváka, kterému je tato kniha určena především. Autor v nich nabízí svůj osobní, místy filozoficky laděný, pohled na různá období, umělecké směry či tvůrčí individuality. Nejedná se však o žádný suchopárný faktografický přehled, nýbrž o zamyšlení nad životy a tvorbou několika slavných umělců (např. Bonnarda, Chardina, Heizera aj.), ale i těch, kteří v českém prostředí příliš známí nejsou. Autorův vypravěčský styl je barvitý a nabitý informacemi. Hlavním posláním knihy je ukázat čtenáři, co vše nám může umění nabídnout a jak se na něj dívat, a především jak zvýšenou citlivostí a vnímavostí vůči okolnímu světu proměnit svůj vlastní život ve svébytné umělecké dílo. Různorodost námětů knihy se v součtu skládá v jakýsi kabinet divů, jenž je ostatně též námětem jedné z kapitol.