Overview

Full Product Details

9781961856110

Table of Contents

Reviews

""This is not an ordinary book. But then, Doug Hall is not an ordinary guy. Like its author, This Is Doug Hall is expansive, inventive, original, and wonderful. To read it is to take a wild ride into the heart, soul, and mind of a true artist, to encounter the family, friends, and creators that have shaped his life and work, and to see America's turbulent past and complicated present from his ever-curious and unique point of view. Best of all, Doug's authentic voice rings through every page--telling his own story while also telling the story of America and ourselves."" --Alexandra Zapruder, author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film ""At once an intimately personal autobiography and an insider account of some of the most turbulent years in US cultural and political history, Hall's richly detailed self-portrait is an invaluable addition to a participant-observer chronicle of American art that extends from the letters of Charles Willson Peale to the memoirs of Faith Ringgold."" --Victor Burgin, artist and writer ""I am tempted to conjure the title of René Magritte's famous painting by suggesting, ""This is not Doug Hall."" ""This"" is, in fact, so much more than one artist--most significantly, Hall presents a life lived with important and loyal companions. Connecting our twenty-first century to the passions of the 1960s and '70s, his memoir delves into the excess of California without losing the confident rhetoric of Harvard, not a small feat. I call this the intelligence and truth of an open mind, a truth at times critically sharp and at times private and vulnerable. ""This"" is a hallmark (pun intended) of accountability."" --Rudolf Frieling, Curator and Head of Media Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ""This Is Doug Hall is a visually stunning and vital document of California Conceptual art. The book provides unique insights into Hall's subjects and methods, intertwined with portraits from his life and times. Hall's work reaches across disciplinary boundaries in form and influence, making this personal and complete accounting of the artist's work essential reading."" --Nick Kaye, scholar and writer, University of Exeter, UK ""With this memoir, it becomes evident the degree to which Doug Hall reshaped art making, not only for himself or others in Northern California, but indeed for the culture of the time. Hall's book reveals timely details of how his radical work and life choices became a catalyst for the invention of new and vitally important modes of perception."" --Lynn Hershman Leeson, artist and filmmaker Frank Herbert once observed that ""John Kennedy was one of the most dangerous presidents this country ever had."" Not because JFK was inherently evil, but because ""people didn't question him."" Doug Hall knows a thing or two about this tyrant-in-waiting and the actual tyrants who would follow, having made an exploration of the threats they posed to society a central tenet of his mature work. He has subsequently explored the primordial indifference of nature to human will and investigated a daunting array of people and places. This is Doug Hall: a time-traveler, generous enough to share his impressions with us."" --Stan Douglas, artist

Author Information

Doug Hall became known in the mid-1970s for his innovative works in performance, video, and media installation, both as an individual artist and as a founding member of the T. R. Uthco Collective. In 1979 Hall expanded his studio practice to explore radical aesthetic practices with students at the San Francisco Art Institute where he taught from 1979 to 2008. He lives and works in San Francisco. 

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available