A defining figure of the 1970s–80s New York art world, Jack Goldstein’s wide-ranging body of work, which included immaculate color films and radiant paintings of appropriated images composed by assistants, is both seductive and interpretively elusive. Goldstein’s legacy has been complicated by the mythology of his later years. Consumed by drug addiction, he dropped out of the art world in the 1990s, lived alone in an East Los Angeles trailer park, and resurfaced in a wave of critical fanfare at the turn of the millennium, before taking his own life in 2003.
Employing his signature blend of biography, theoretical reflection, and archival research, Alexander Dumbadze examines Goldstein’s life and career, homing in on the artist’s refusal to distinguish between mental and actual images. Progressing chronologically through key moments in Goldstein’s artistic and intellectual formation, the book offers a deeply complex portrait of this significant artist, along with a nuanced meditation on the nature of images, the meaning of artistic subjectivity, and the consequences of holding unwavering faith in art.
