Alfred A. Knopf

The cave painters; probing the mysteries of the first artists.

In this comprehensive study of the cave paintings of France and Spain, Curtis touches on every aspect of the paintings, from their beauty and theories about their origins to the men and women who rediscovered them. He considers the meaning of the paintings by reviewing the major theories — that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, was used for religious purposes or was clan mythology — and explaining the ways in which ethnography, archeology and religion have influenced the thinking about the paintings over time. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Leni; the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl.

German director Leni Riefenstahl is at once lauded as one of the great documentary filmmakers of all time and reviled as "Hitler's filmmaker," achieving both reputations for her work on the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Following World War II, Riefenstahl managed a not unsuccessful effort to reconstruct herself as an apolitical artist unaware of the crimes of the Nazi regime. In this biography of Riefenstahl, Bach (Bennington College and Columbia U.) offers a very different picture, portraying her as an ambitious woman, enamored with Hitler's Mein Kampf and well aware of both her role as a Nazi propagandist and the crimes of the Nazi regime. The biography spends as much time on Leni's early life as a dancer and actress as it does on her activities under the Nazis and her post-war attempts to refashion herself as a "primitivist" studying the Nuba tribe in Sudan and as an underwater photographer. In spite of Riefenstahl's attempt at self-rehabilitation, Bach condemns her as nostalgic and unrepentant for the horrors of the Nazis while not failing to recognize the legacy of her aesthetic achievements. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Visual shock; a history of art controversies in American culture.

Pulitzer Prize winner Kammen explains why art matters in this study of the nature, diversity and persistence of major disputes generated by art and artists since the 1830s. In reviewing the controversies over art in US history, he discusses the kind of art appropriate for a democratic society, how a distinctively American art can be achieved, and the reasons for the politicalization of art since the late 1960s. Kammen also considers the quest for provocative shows in some galleries and museums and the commercialization stemming from dependence on corporate sponsorship at others. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)