N.Y. Review of Books

 A Proliferation of Beauties, Jarrett Earnest, review of Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art by Daniel Oppenheimer, and The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty, Revised and Expanded by Dave Hickey.

“Similarly, and almost uniquely in contemporary criticism Hickey‘s writing returns to artists both their painful humanity and their extraordinary talents inextricably pushing them apart from and toward their fellows.  It honors the simultaneity of Maplethorpe’s “aberrant “ sexuality and his photographs angelic light. Hickey’s advocacy for “beauty” locates the arrow that flies with unerring precision, hitting a stranger’s heart every time.  Moving beyond the personal psychology or biography of an artist, the artwork extends an unlikely communion with other alienated people who found that by making and thinking about something beautiful, they invoke a gentler, more exciting and more livable society.” Mr. Earnest