{"product_id":"touching-the-art-9781593767358","title":"Touching the Art","description":"\u003cb\u003eA daringly observant memoir about intergenerational trauma, fine art, and compartmentalization from a returning Soft Skull author and Lambda Literary Award winner\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA mixture of memoir, biography, criticism, and social history, \u003ci\u003eTouching the Art\u003c\/i\u003e is queer icon and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's interrogation of the possibilities of artistic striving, the limits of the middle-class mindset, the legacy of familial abandonment, and what art can and cannot do. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaking the form of a self-directed research project, Sycamore recounts the legacy of her fraught relationship with her late grandmother, an abstract artist from Baltimore who encouraged Mattilda as a young artist, then disparaged Mattilda's work as \"vulgar\" and a \"waste of talent\" once it became unapologetically queer. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs she sorts through her grandmother Gladys's paintings and handmade paperworks, Sycamore examines the creative impulse itself. In fragments evoking the movements of memory, she searches for Gladys's place within the trajectories of midcentury modernism and Abstract Expressionism, Jewish assimilation and white flight, intergenerational trauma and class striving. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSycamore writes, \"Art is never just art, it is a history of feeling, a gap between sensations, a safety valve, an escape hatch, a sudden shift in the body, a clipboard full of flowers, a welcome mat flipped over and back, over and back, welcome.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRefusing easy answers in search of an embodied truth, Sycamore upends propriety to touch the art and feel everything that comes through.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Soft Skull\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/07\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781593767358\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2023 pg. 20\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43124464648373,"sku":"9781593767358","price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_a368c2f0-6091-49eb-913d-f2e4e18a8d47.jpg?v=1694552591","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/touching-the-art-9781593767358","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}