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Check out the Latest Media Coverage of powerHouse Books !!
Updated: December 2002
CLOWN PAINTINGS "You hate them; I hate them; everybody but Ms. Keaton loathes these things. But she has assembled a wildly colorful set of pictures and asked a lot of very funny people to comment on them." —Janet Maslin for The New York Times, "Books of the Times" "This desperate-looking clown, with its tongue lolling out like an eager cocker spaniel's, a floppy candy striped bow tie and a potted cactus on its head changed Keaton's life forever —and now is featured on the cover of her book. 'I don't see them as kitsch,' Keaton insisted in a recent interview. 'Some of them are remarkable portraits in my opinion, and I stand behind that.' " —Los Angeles Times "Keaton is a well-known and intelligent collector of kitsch. For some time, she had a real jones fo cheap religious iconography, the Jesus-on-velvet phase. Then one day at a swap meet, she happened upon 'a clown painting I liked', a fellow with a a big lapping dog's tongue and atop his greasepainted head, a cactus in a pot for a hat. 'And I thought it was beautiful', she says. So it began." —The Washington Post "Diane Keaton has a remarkable nose for the exact moment when throw-away cultural artifacts of the past cross the zeitgeist line to achieve posthumous postmodern significance.... And she has a great eye, which saves this effort from mere stinking irony....Very few exploit the aliby of ineptitude, and only a handful are routine or generic. Affects range from the queasy to the purulent to the psychotic. Some of the clowns are sad, some are mad, and a number are bad bad bad. If I were to hang any on my walls it would have to be in a very special room I only entered once a year....This book will make a great gift item, for grandparents, goths, and cultural-studies faculty alike!” —Luc Sante for Bookforum, with mention on the cover "This odd book is as much a look into the dark heart of Hollywood narcissism and juice as it is an excellent introduction to the grim, fascinating artistic subgenre....Here Keaton has collected sixty six wrenching, full-color reproductions along with the responses of fellow thespians to her collection...,since clowns and actors have 'all gone for the laugh, sold out on occasion, dressed for effect, and paraded our hearts on our sleeves.'....This unlikely combination of clown paintings and thirty three texts by mostly comedic actors yields irony levels reaching the heights of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm...and is every bit as entertaining and affecting." —Publishers Weekly "Diane Keaton goes looking for Mr. Good-Clown in Clown Paintings, with essays by such sillies as Woody Allen and Jonathan Winters." —Vanity Fair "Clown Paintings is so bad it's good.... In this very personal ode to clown art, Keaton urges readers to take the kitschy genre seriously, prsenting 66 in-your-face images to further her cause.... Sadly, few of Keaton's pals share her passion—of the 33 comedians who contribute mini-essays, most display extreme clownophobia." —The Village Voice "[Diane Keaton] reveals that her home is like the Louvre for creepy clown paintings. Diane and art curator Robert Berman scored 66 masterpieces by unknown Sunday painters at swap meets and flea markets—and they're not so bad they're good. This is, honest to God, one of the best art books I've ever seen." —Jane "Turn that frown upside down, Bozo! Diane Keaton has cajoled Woody Allen, Larry David, Steve Martin, Ben Stiller, and a crowded Volkswagen's worth of other A listers to contribute to essays to her book about...clown paintings." —Entertainment Weekly "In Clown Paintings, actress Diane Keaton and curator Robert Berman unveil hidden treasures of clown art purchased at flea markets. Some of the clowns are sad, some are happy and others are just plain circus jerks." —Playboy "Clown Painitings...features images from Keaton's private collection by a variety of amateur artists...alongside little treatises about clowns written by some of her funny friends—Annie Hall creator Woody Allen is one of them. Some agree with Keaton, who has found many of her 200 clown paintings at swap meets, garage sales and thrift shops over the past ten years, that these are compelling aesthetic objects, but the majority of comedians polled unleash emotions ranging from rage to curiosity regarding the beleaguered circus performers." —Time Out New York "Five years ago I started to collect paintings most people hate," Keaton writes in the introduction. "Works of such sappy sentimentality [done] in the grand tradition of the justifiably labeled, 'ugliest genre of them all.' The blurb from powerHouse Books notes Keaton was 'as mesmerized by their mute eloquence as she was by their bad taste.' " —"Page Six," New York Post "There was something trashy, yet crusading, about becoming a champion of clown paintings.... How would one tranform a clown painting? Perhaps by multiplying it. Confronted by dozens and dozens of clown paintings, even disbelievers might come to share a more sympathetic view of clowns." —Baltimore Sun "And, yes, here is another show in which an audience member inquires as to whether the guest collects clown paintings. What the hell is that? Mr. Short lets onthat Diane Keaton gifted him with one. It turns out Miss Keaton now has published a book of clown paintings, with celebrities generally decrying the art form entirely. Why do the clowns upset the funny people? I ask you. Really. I ask you. Meanwhile, I think we'll give the clown paintings question a rest for a while. Maybe….” —Bill Zehme, “Second City Presents Martin Short With Bill Zeheme,” Bravo TV "...Clown Paintings is a volume dedicated to a much-maligned genre....Keaton explains, 'I am a swap-meet archeologist, and I go for what touches me, for what somehow works no matter how crude it is." Keaton says she has a great sense of identification with the people's imaginations and their lack of skills. These are portraits,' she says. 'They may not be educated, but they are genuine and emotionally rich.' " —ARTnews "[In Clown Paintings] you have your happy clowns and your sad clowns, your confused clowns and sly clowns. Some seem pensive, while others seem to be teetering on the brink of murder, while still others appear to be in pain of some sort. There's a morose Bozo in there and more than one Death's-head clown....Clown Paintings is a pretty clever idea for a coffee table celebrity-concept book, and whatever you might think of Diane Keaton, she's pulled it off quite beautifully." —New York Press "They'll either make you laugh, or they'll scare the pants off you.... The book embraces all the mysterious contradictions of clown, from their ability to amuse us to their knack for terrifying us. Step right uo, ladies and gentlemen." —The Weekly Alibi "As ir happens, these pictures are so heinous that they're actually impressive." —Rev "Clown Paintings is a 128-page book that features 65 full-color illustrations of amateur paintings of clowns (from the collections of Keaton and Santa Monicaart dealer Robert Berman) along with an incredible collection of texts by top comedians relating how clowns had affected their lives." —Artnet.com "'My thanks to Diane Keaton for giving me this opportunity to revisit an incident that I have worked so hard to forget, lo these many years. I would encourage her to find a new pastime, one that does not include the collecting of these monstrous and hideous clowns.' [Larry David said]" —"PageSix", New York Post More Press Coverage !! |
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