Overview

This is the first book to offer a full account of Byrne's sprawling artistic portfolio. The account of Byrne's career, while told in roughly chronological order, is ordered by choosing a specific abstract approach, or a combination of two approaches, for each chapter, discussing the parallels and contradictions between such approaches to benefit the interpretation of Byrne's art. This is the first book to offer a full account of Byrne's sprawling artistic portfolio. David Byrne's work functions almost completely through the mass media - in popular music, experimental theatre, film, television, fine art and writing. The underlying connection is a conceptual approach to both high and popular art. Byrne has always accompanied his work with a stream of conceptual reflections, by developing a loose theoretical patchwork of ideas on music, ritual, culture and myth, reading widely in anthropology, socio-biology, neurology, ethnomusicology, art theory, media theory, comparative mythology and more. Based on the fame he gained with his band Talking Heads (1977-circa 1989), Byrne is able to enter into collaborations with many artists, some of popular fame - Brian Eno, Jonathan Demme - many known best in more specialized artistic circles - Joseph Kosuth (conceptual artist), Caetano Veloso (Brazilian singer/songwriter of Tropicalismo fame). The map of collaborations, including the casual and incidental ones, reveals an ongoing effort to combine avant-gardism with popular appeal. While Byrne developed his career in a pragmatic way, grasping opportunities for collaboration when they presented themselves, this theoretical patchwork is a constant factor. The account of Byrne's career, while told in roughly chronological order, is ordered by choosing a specific abstract approach, or a combination of two approaches, for each chapter, discussing the parallels and contradictions between such approaches to benefit the interpretation of Byrne's art. As a result, the fertile conceptual brew that characterizes Byrne's way of making art is present from the beginning, while each chapter adds to a thorough insight.

Full Product Details

9780826445599

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Reviews

If I ever need to remind myself what I was reading or mulling over at various points in my life I have only to look in this scrupulously researched and uncannily on-the-money book. Would that we all had references like this! It is for me a beautiful and narcissistically bizarre experience to re-experience my life through the series of ideas and the flow of connections I have made as they are reported and interpreted by Sytze Steenstra. The book is delightfully and unusually free of gossip and psychological assumptions and explanations (not that those don't also contain some truth); instead it focuses almost exclusively on what I've done, said or written and comes to some conclusions that are (to me) surprising and unexpected. Sytze finds connections I wasn't aware of, and continuity and patterns where initially one might see randomness and chaos. This book makes me seem both smarter than I am and possibly stranger than I am. - David Byrne

Author Information

Sytze Steenstra, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and a freelance author/editor.

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