Dan Nadel

Judith Tannenbaum

What Nerve! reveals a hidden history of American figurative painting, sculpture and popular imagery. It documents and/or restages four installations, spaces or happenings, in Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Providence, which were crucial to the development of figurative art in the United States. Several of the better-known artists in What Nerve! have been the subject of significant exhibitions or publications, but this is the first major volume to focus on the broader impact of figurative art to connect artists and collectives from different generations and regions of the country. These are: from Chicago, the Hairy Who (James Falconer, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Suellen Rocca, Karl Wirsum); from California, Funk artists (Jeremy Anderson, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Robert Hudson, Ken Price, Peter Saul, Peter Voulkos, William T. Wiley); from Detroit, Destroy All Monsters (Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara, Jim Shaw); and from Providence, Forcefield (Mat Brinkman, Jim Drain, Leif Goldberg, Ara Peterson). Created in collaboration with artists from these groups, the historical moments at the core of What Nerve! are linked by work from six artists who profoundly influenced or were influenced by the groups: William Copley, Jack Kirby, Elizabeth Murray, Gary Panter, Christina Ramberg and H.C. Westermann. Featuring paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs and videos, as well as ephemera, wallpaper and other materials used in the reconstructed installations, the book and exhibition will broaden public exposure to the scope of this influential history. The exuberance, humor and politics of these artworks remain powerfully resonant. Much of the work in this book, including installation photos, exhibition ephemera and correspondence, is published for the first time. What Nerve! represents the first historical examination of the circumstances, relationships and works of an increasingly important lineage of American artists.

Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present

What Nerve!

Nancy Davidson

Breathless

Spoon Jackson

“A boy with no one to listen becomes a man in prison for life and discovers his mind can be free. A woman enters prison to teach and becomes his first listener. And so begins a twenty-five year friendship between two gifted writers and poets. The result is By Heart— a book that will anger you, give you hope, and break your heart."—Gloria Steinem For most of their adult lives, since meeting as teacher and pupil at San Quentin State Prison, Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson have conferred, corresponded, and sometimes collaborated, producing very different bodies of work resting on the same understanding: that human beings have one foot in darkness, another in light. Moving stories of their childhoods and adult creative lives reveal both tragedy and beauty. In alternating chapters—part memoir, part essay—By Heart reveals painful truths about prison, education, and which children our world nurtures and which it shuns. At its core are two stories that speak for human imagination, spirit, and expression. Judith Tannenbaum is a nationally respected poet, educator, lecturer, and the author of Disguised as a Poem, among other works, including poetry, anthologies, and guidebooks for teaching arts in prison. She coordinates training at WritersCorps. Born into an impoverished family of fifteen boys, Spoon Jackson was sentenced to life without possibility of parole by age twenty. He discovered himself as a writer for the first time in prison, eventually becoming an award-winning, internationally-known poet and essayist, as well as a facilitator of creative writing classes for other prisoners.

Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives

By Heart

"A boy with no one to listen becomes a man in prison for life and discovers his mind can be free. A woman enters prison to teach and becomes his first listener. And so begins a twenty-five year friendship between two gifted writers and poets. The result is By Heart ? a book that will anger you, give you hope, and break your heart." - Gloria Steinem Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson met at San Quentin State Prison in 1985. For over two decades they have conferred, corresponded and sometimes collaborated, producing very different bodies of work resting on the same understanding: that human beings have one foot in darkness, the other in light. In this beautifully crafted exploration _ part memoir, part essay _ Tannenbaum and Jackson consider art, education, prison, possibility, and which children our world nurtures and which it shuns. At the book's core are two stories that speak for human imagination, spirit, and expression. Judith Tannenbaum is a nationally respected educator, speaker, and author. Among her books are the memoir, Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin; two books for teachers _ Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades and (with Valerie Chow Bush) Jump Write In! Creative Writing Exercises for Diverse Communities, Grades 6-12; and six poetry collections. She currently serves as training coordinator with WritersCorps in San Francisco. Born into a family of fifteen boys in Barstow, California, Spoon Jackson was sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole when he was twenty years old. Spoon discovered himself as a writer at San Quentin; played Pozzo in the prison's 1988 production of Waiting for Godot; and has written, published, and received awards for plays, poetry, novels, fairy tales, short stories, essays, and memoir during the more than thirty years he has been behind bars. His poems are collected in Longer Ago.

Marion Boulton Stroud

Rhode Island School of Design. Museum of Art

Essays by Judith Tannenbaum and Charles F. Stuckey. Foreword by Judith Tannenbaum. Introduction by Marion Boulton Stroud.

Judith Tannenbaum

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