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Houdini: Art and Magic (Jewish Museum)

von Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Jewish Museum New York

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Illustrates Harry Houdini's life and career, covering his daring escapes, cinematic escapades, Broadway career, secretive personal life, and influence on Andy Warhol, Matthew Barney, and Edward Hopper.
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I was expecting a more detailed account of Houdini's, but still this book was adequate. From his humble beginnings as a Jewish immigrant from Hungary to the heights of international stardom, this book manages to portray some of his character. ( )
  charlie68 | Aug 31, 2021 |
This is essentially an exhibition catalogue, so I wasn't expecting an in-depth Houdini biography, which is just as well because this isn't.

What it is, is a series of essays on various aspects of Houdini's life and legacy, very well illustrated with many photographs, lobby cards and theatre posters which I (at least) haven't seen before.

The essays The Immigrant World of Harry Houdini, describing his status as a symbol of liberation and social mobility for immigrants to the United States, Houdini, the Rabbi's Son examining his relationship to his Jewish faith, were particularly good.

What loses this book a star (and-a-half) from my rating are the essay about, and the interviews with, contemporary artists, which I found pretentious. This is probably due to my own ignorance of contemporary art and lack of exposure to the language used when discussing it, but there we are. It's also possibly a little unfair, given the title of the book puts Art before Magic. Anyway, I would have preferred a greater focus on the development of Houdini's image and self-mythologising through contemporary theatre posters (which are quite well represented in the illustrations, if not sufficiently discussed), magazine articles and newspaper stories.

Despite these reservations, this is still a fascinating book and certainly one that I will return to.
( )
  Michael.Rimmer | Mar 30, 2013 |
What this book does really well is make use of the amazing visual documentation of Houdini's life and career, including photographs, posters, film stills, and Houdini's magical props. The cover design alone, with the mesmerizing photograph of Houdini staring straight at the camera, eyes piercing the viewer, which we see through a cut-out hole in the front cover, is a compelling illustration of Houdini's charisma.

Silverman and Diner's essays document the lives of Houdini and his wife Bess, respectively, placing them in the context of immigrant Jewish and German life in the US, the flowering of popular entertainment in the forms of vaudeville, theater, and magic, gender, and the culture of celebrity. I found Brinkley's essay on "The Immigrant World of Harry Houdini" to be shallow, offering a fairly standard overview of turn-of-the-20th-century immigration, with some mentions of Jewish immigrant life and Houdini in specific, but nothing that is especially new or thoughtful. Houdini is clearly used as an example in this essay, but it seems as if instances in his life were merely plugged in, that the same could have been done for any notable immigrant without changing the text. General readers may learn something about immigrant life in America from Brinkley's essay, but it doesn't feel like Houdini's life offered Brinkley any new insights into it.

My problem with Brooke Rapaport's essay and the interviews with with writers, artists, and magicians influenced by Houdini is really the same as it was with the exhibit itself. The attempted juxtaposition between Houdini and his art with the works produced by several contemporary artists who are, in some way, his admirers seems off. Perhaps it's my lack of education in contemporary art, especially performance art, or simply that the pieces presented did not appeal, but I found the contemporary art uninteresting and not particularly insightful into either Houdini or the ideas communicated by his performances and career.

I was reminded of Art Spiegelman's review of the 1990 High Art Lowdown Exhibit at MoMA, which he discusses in MetaMaus (2011): that exhibit's side-by-side treatment of modern "high art" (paintings by Lichtenstein, MIro, etc) with "low art," specifically comics, trivialized the "low" and reinforced the idea that it was "low," interesting when set side-by-side with its more cultured cousin, but not worth understanding on its own terms. By bringing in the contemporary pieces "influenced" by Houdini's work, the Houdini exhibit implies that these works are Houdini's legacy in contemporary culture. Which is just odd. And wrong. Rather than the contemporary art pieces, which seem to me to be marginal to the popular cultural legacy of Houdini (as well as to art...), I would have loved to have seen, for example, posters and visual works related to Houdini's peers, like the circle of Jewish magicians that Silverman mentions, or the varied entertainment colleagues in the Jewish Theatrical Guild. How about something about how Houdini was memorialized by American culture after his death? How about clips from Houdini's films? Clips from the Tony Curtis Houdini biopic? Houdini's "self-liberation" would be much more interesting presented in context of his own era's culture than in the contemporary art pieces, where it seems deracinated.

The book is beautifully made and provides great visual delight, but as a book about Houdini and culture (whether American or Jewish), it is disappointing. ( )
  jr231 | May 21, 2012 |
The Jewish Museum in New York City created an exhibit of Houdini's art and magic (October 29, 2010 - March 27, 2011). The premier exhibition product was this book, Houdini: Art and Magic (2010), by curator and writer Brooke Kamin Rapaport, with contributions of chapters by historian Alan Brinkley on Houdini's immigration, historian Hasia R. Diner on Houdini's wife, curator Gabriel de Guzman on the Houdinis' chronology, and biographer Kenneth Silverman on Houdini's Jewishness.

I especially enjoyed Rapaport's chapter of interviews containing Q&A sessions with fifteen contemporary writers, magicians, and artists who talked about the lingering influence of Harry Houdini on their works and performances. E.L. Doctorow told how Houdini became a visual force for him as a writer. Raymond Joseph Teller (the silent half of Penn and Teller) told how Houdini, who died in 1926, continues to influence magicians and American culture today. Rapaport interviewed a number of creative people for whom Houdini became a "patron saint, role model, and inspiration," including such artists as, surrealist Matthew Barney, realist Whitney Bedford, wood artist Joe Coleman, sculptor Perah Coyne, painter and printmaker Jane Hammond, videographer Tim Lee, unconventional artist Vik Muniz, holographer Ikuo Nakamura, painter Deborah Oropallo, graphic artist Raymond Pettibon, Jewish artist Sara Greenberger Rafferty, conceptual artist Allen Ruppersberg, and minimalist Christopher Wood.

Although the reader will not be shown any of the secret workings of Houdini's feats and illusions, the final chapter of the book is a show and tell display of a few of his most famous pieces of magic apparatus: the East Indian Needle Threading Trick; various handcuffs, locks, and chains escaped from by "The Handcuff King;" the celebrated Metamorphosis Trunk used by the Houdinis to exchange places in 3 seconds; the daring Milk Can Escape; the terrifying Water Torture Cell; and his most documented achievement, the Straitjacket Escape.

Bibliophiles will appreciate this colorfully and profusely illustrated book published by The Jewish Museum in conjunction with the Yale University Press. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources (CLR). The inside of the book, the binding, and the book covers -- all the components of a book crafter's art -- showcase the kind of quality materials and workmanship that lend themselves to pride of ownership.

I highly recommend this book both for its contents and for its potential for longevity. This book will not turn yellow and brittle with age. Its contents, spanning three centuries, have already met the test of time. ( )
1 abstimmen MrJack | Jan 5, 2011 |
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Brooke Kamin RapaportHauptautoralle Ausgabenberechnet
Jewish Museum New YorkHauptautoralle Ausgabenbestätigt
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Illustrates Harry Houdini's life and career, covering his daring escapes, cinematic escapades, Broadway career, secretive personal life, and influence on Andy Warhol, Matthew Barney, and Edward Hopper.

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