Behind Closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer (The Discovery Series)

Therese Lichtenstein, Behind Closed Doors: The Art of Hans Bellmer (University of California Press, 2003)If you are aware of Hans Bellmer, you probably don't need this review. If you are not aware of Hans Bellmer, you're probably not reading this review. So... fish!A blowdryer. Seven kinds of candy and a needle threaded with bullion stitching together tree limbs in the desert.Lichtenstein does a fine job of deconstructing Bellmer, not only focusing on his subversion of Nazi ideology (ground already well-trod in art criticism), but pulling in biographical data to give a clearer understanding of what forces drove Bellmer to create life-sized dolls, assemble the pieces in odd ways, and then photograph them hundreds of times with only the smallest changes in position. Her essay is clear, readable, excellent. The book's main problem is that, well, for an art book, there's not terribly much art. More pictures, please! (Especially the drawings, a side of Bellmer's art seen all too rarely.) What art there is is reproduced well, though that's to be expected from an art book, wot? The book also uses the annoying, but increasingly common, convention of end-of-the-book endnotes instead of footnotes (or even end-of-the-chapter notes, annoying but not as much so). Stopping every half-page or so to flip to the back of the book makes for not-so-happy readers.Still, a fine work on a sadly neglected artist. Worth your time. ****

Therese Lichtenstein's "Behind Closed Doors" will immediately grab you visually, as any book about art or an artist should. It rivals Sue Taylor's "Anatomy of Anxiety" as far as visual appeal with the book itself and the plates therein. However, Lichtenstein's discussion of the exceedingly complex Hans Bellmer is a little too cautious, a little too much of a large brushstroke. This is a great book for a reader who knows little about Bellmer's work to read, but if you are hoping for some biography with your art discussion, this one does not have very much.This book is significant, though. Lichtenstein's discussion of Bellmer's life and art within an historical context is an engrossing and very well-documented discussion, but since so much of the book is spent on such interpretation, I feel it has left a lot of Hans, the man, and where his dolls really came from, by the wayside.This is merely opinion, and it may be that what was needed (and I guess I can accept this) was a new look at Bellmer and his work, with a little less focus on castration anxiety, his relationship with his father, his brother, and his lack of ability to truly be a child when he was a child. But I fear it was never really investigated b/c of the inherent taboo nature of Bellmer the man. It may have been me, but it always kind of felt like Lichtenstein was holding back a little, a tone of tension, perhaps, a touch of apprehension.What I feel is absolutely wonderful in Lichtenstein's book: its absolutely gorgeous creation, and the inclusion of a couple of Bellmer's own writing.As I said, for a reader just beginning to delve into the surreal world of Hans Bellmer, it is perfection. For those who already know a good deal about Bellmer, it is still very much worth it for the beautiful construction of the book, the excellent plates of his work, his own writing that is also contained, as well as Lichtenstein's solid, though sometimes redundant, interpretations of Hans Bellmer's work.

This is a good book to dicover the strange world of Hans Bellmer. Therese Lichtenstein describes the history of the dolls and Hans Bellmer with the contribution of people that were close to Bellmer. She also try to give a sociologic, anthropologic and psychoanalitic explanation to Bellmer's work. I think it's a good book to buy!