Contrapposto by Dave Eggers review – this portrait of an artist falls flat
The story of a lifelong friendship between two art-world mavericks from the working-class midwest is disappointingly pious Dave Eggers, the author of more than a
The story of a lifelong friendship between two art-world mavericks from the working-class midwest is disappointingly pious Dave Eggers, the author of more than a dozen novels as well as a steady stream of children’s and nonfiction books, grew up wanting to be an artist.As a child he took lessons with a Japanese watercolourist, studied painting at college, worked as a magazine cartoonist and illustrator, even curated a New York show entitled Lots of Things Like This featuring pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Marcel Duchamp.
He is soon to open a project in San Francisco that he has been hatching for a decade – Art + Water, an amalgam of art school, affordable studios, exhibition galleries and local gathering point. Cricket Dibb, the cloyingly named hero of Contrapposto, would love a place like Art + Water. He’s 10 years old, a working-class midwestern kid who passes raccoons and broken tractors on his way to school.
His stepfather, Robert, thinks nothing of beating his mother, calling her “a gimpy whore”, stealing any money she’s saved. Cricket hates him, not least on aesthetic grounds – “his ugly gold watch, his mouth full of black fillings, his bony bald head, his pockmarked face, his tiny black eyes”. Cricket’s life is erratic, his future unpromising. His grandfather, though, spots him drawing: “You can produce beauty there in your notebooks, from scratch.
And harmony. Chaos outside, order on your paper.” Continue reading...
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