A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years
in the New York Art World by Marcia
Tucker
Marcia Tucker's Short Life Of Trouble.
This engrossing memoir brings to vivid life the behind-the-scenes struggles
of Marcia Tucker, the first woman to be hired as a curator at the Whitney
Museum of American Art and the founder of the New Museum of
Contemporary Art in New York City. Tucker came of age in the 1960s, and
this spirited account of her life draws the reader directly into the
burgeoning feminist movement and the excitement of the New York art
world during that time. Her own new ways of thinking led her to take
principled stands that have changed the way art museums consider
contemporary art. As curator of painting and sculpture at the Whitney, she
organized major exhibitions of the work of Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell,
Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Tuttle, among others. As
founder of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, she organized and
curated groundbreaking exhibitions that often focused on the nexus of art

and politics. The book highlights Tuckers commitment to forging a new
system when the prevailing one proved too narrow for her expansive
vision.
Personal Review: A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the
New York Art World by Marcia Tucker
I stayed up most of the night reading this book the day it arrived at our
house, and the next day my partner did the same. If you are a woman
professional in your 60s interested in the arts, I bet you will have the same
response. I assume just about everyone else will enjoy this book also.
With none of the proper credentials in a time when a woman, even with
those credentials, could expect little from the patrician New York art world,
Tucker simply forged ahead, determined to follow her own interests and
with a flair for developing friends and mentors with the money and power
to enable her to realize her vision. As John Baldessari quips, only Marcia
when fired by one major museum [the Whitney] would respond by starting
her own museum.
To thine own self be true has become a hackneyed phrase. Marcia in this
always amusing memoir reminds us that this need not be true. A passion
for a subject and a determination to pursue that passion despite not
knowing where it will lead provides the basis for the memoir and her life.
The book ends as she dies of cancer at a relatively young age, but even
this ending is not particularly sad. She led a full and challenging life right
to the end. How many of us can really say that?
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World by Marcia Tucker 5
Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!