Jonathon Keats

We're so extremely used to the known fairytale formulas from Andersen and Grimm that when we come across an innovative, yet familiar approach we might go: but this is ............... good! At least that's what happened to me when I read the short stories in this novel. My notion of what a fairytale was or ought to be was pleasantly disrupted. At times complex, always intriguing and never rife with obligatory meaningful messages, the thirty six tales are novel, entertaining and deep. In my show more opinion the rapid pace of creative twists can give even Gaiman a run for his money.

Ever since I read The Shack I became careful of reading anything that has a hint of and evangelical tone to it and with this book I hesitated because the stories are clearly grounded in the Jewish faith. After the first story however this notion went straight out the door and I kept on reading story after story. The most satisfying aspect of the book is the way the author treats the reader. In our current entertainment culture where every bit of media needs to have a strong moral message, these tales allow the reader to take from them whatever is appropriate. show less

There are several threads that Keats follows in his descriptions of artists and fakes in Forged, but I think the primary theme of the novel is "value" — what makes something 'art', how and why do we assign value to it, and what does it mean when the stated reasons for the evaluation are divorced from the reality. I don't think Keats ever gives definitive answers to these questions, but rather they are hanging over the text for the reader to ponder and come to his or her own show more conclusions.

Keats does provide plenty of background and examples in art history to guide the reader to his thesis, that forgeries are a distillation of the various elements that make modern art both 'art' and valuable, but in order to find Keats's arguments compelling, the reader must also agree with his definition of modern art.

While I have sympathy for Keats's argument, I wasn't entirely convinced that, as he says on page 23 in my advance copy, the "most productive attributes of modern art" are to question, provoke, and agitate. He goes on to say "compelling art does not merely depict anxiety, but induces it, awakening us to the invidious conditions of the dystopia in which we live, so that the engine of progress does not make tools of us". I happen to work in a contemporary art museum and have to say that I don't necessarily find that to be an apt description of many of the works we have put on exhibition — it seems like a bit of a stretch, or a secondary purpose at best. But Keats uses the third section of the book to address modern art with a focus on artists such as Warhol, Jasper Johns, Banksy, and Shepard Fairey, as well as subversive and relatively new forms of art like culture jamming. By limiting the statement to these types of modern artists and movements, I feel that Keats's thesis is spot on.

But even if we ignore the statement about forgeries and modern art for the moment, Forged is still an interesting and thought-provoking book. Divided into three sections, the first discusses art history with a focus on what makes something 'art' and how the ideas of plagiarism and forgery developed. Keats shows how a work of art's value transitioned from being about the skill/aesthetics of the piece to being about its authenticity and the worth/celebrity of the artist's name. This transition began in the Renaissance and became fully seated by the mid 19th century when pieces from antiquity were valued due to their historicity and apparent idyllic qualities of life prior to the "stressful modern bleakness" of the Industrial Revolution. As Keats says on page 20 of my advanced copy, the Romantic era elevated fine arts (painting, sculpture, and so on) such that traditional arts were seen as unofficial or illegitimate. The result is that craftsmen forged antiquities to earn a living, contributing to and further cementing the ideas of artist name and historicity as markers of 'art'.

Forged's second section contains six artist biographies to illustrate the markers that give art value: Belief, Authenticity, Authority, History, Identity, and Culture. Each artist's work and the context surrounding their reasons for forgery (or their own statements on the subject) show how they were able to manipulate the markers to pass off their forgeries as the real thing. I noticed that the upheaval and uncertainty of war was a common element, incidentally - particularly the two World Wars that caused so much destruction and theft of artwork.

Finally, of course, the third section discusses modern art and how many of the major artists and movements subvert and reject these six markers.

This is one of the more interesting books I have read in several months. I think it is definitely worth a look for anyone who is interested in art history, questions of copyright/plagiarism, and/or even how we as a society place value on things and make them art. The only thing I really find I missed was illustrations or photographs of the forgeries described, of which there is no evidence in this advance copy. I looked the works up with Google and Wikipedia, and it greatly enhanced my reading experience to be able to visualize the artwork. show less

Outstanding Critical Biography

Buckminster Fuller would have approved of the structure of You Belong To The Universe. It dispenses with his biography in the introduction, delineating the various myths that Fuller himself propagated. It’s the standard hagiography that everyone who is interested already knows. Keats devotes the rest of the book to putting Fuller’s ideas into perspective and criticizing many of his concepts with real world applications and criticisms. It is a wonderful show more approach, smartly executed, and immensely enlightening.

From cars to shelter, Keats examines Fuller’s dreams and shows how they have been realized (or bypassed) today, differently, and often in more sophisticated fashion, thanks to new materials, 3D printers and new inspiration. At some level, Fuller was little more than a dreamer, predicting a Jetsons-like future, because he had no way to execute. Keats calls him a techno-utopian. This sort of “comprehensive anticipatory design science” is fully realized only if the scientist thinks through the details: the materials, the stresses, and the environment. Fuller did not do that. He just proselytized his ideas in talks all over the world, for decades, without debate, according to Keats.

Keats takes each of Fuller’s major themes and shows their pre-history, where Fuller was right and was wrong, and how developments soon left him behind. These include the Dymaxion car, home, and map, geodesic domes, world peace games and distance learning, each of which gets a chapter.

Despite contradicting himself and changing course as needed, Fuller remained so convinced of his rightness that alternatives were meaningless to him. This cleareyed view of a futurist saint is a valuable eye-opener, providing much needed light where only heat has been apparent.

David Wineberg show less

Reading this reminded me of snowy winter nights, curled up in bed at my grandmother's house, reading her old books of fairy tales. Those were the real Brothers Grimm and H.C. Andersen tales, not the cleaned-up versions, and I was happy to be transported back in time with this book. Keats manages to conjure up the same mood and the same style of narrative in most of these stories - a similar mixture of moral and danger and the inherent goodness of the hero or heroine. It would be easy to show more imagine these stories being told to grandchildren in front of the fire on a chilly evening, except perhaps "Vov the Whore," which is quite a bit more brutal than the other stories, giving the collection a little "hiccup" in the middle. I do hope the frame-story's Dr. Katz reappears once he's found the other twenty-four Lamed Vavs. show less