Literary

Book Reviews - The Special Issue

By JESSE PEARSON, LISA PHILLIPS

Charley Magazine
Edited by Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan is most likely our favorite artist. He’s funny, smart, and an expert at taking the piss. He’s also Italian, constantly smirking, and when he says “hi” to you when you’re DJing he spends five full minutes freaking out over a Smiths album cover. This is the guy who hung a donkey from a harness in a swanky gallery, hired an actor to hang out in front of MoMA wearing a Disney World-style plaster Picasso head, and made that amazing and eerily realistic sculpture of the Pope crushed by a meteor. This is the second issue of Cattelan’s second magazine (his first, Permanent Food, was a compendium of pages snatched from other mags—guerilla collage, basically). Charley (this time) is a book of postcards taking stock of the current art world. (As well as giving it a gonorrhea test and a massage.) You know what else is nice? The good, the bad, the really good, and the totally fucking shitty are all represented, because Mr. Cattelan is a truly benevolent editor (and he also probably knows that when you put garbage next to genius, bad artists tie their own little nooses).

JESSE PEARSON

A New Deal for New York
Mike Wallace
Gotham Center Books

The author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 is one of the few people from whom I want to hear anything about September 11. Everyone else should shut up. The whole idea here is that times of crisis in America can bring amazing opportunities for renewal—economically, socially, and creatively. After a lively history of the downtown area in the first section of this short and easily read book, Wallace proposes a few different ideas. His strategies take so much into account, covering everything from new job opportunities, a revitalized port, affordable housing, business real estate, and recreational public spaces. And to silence any naysayers, Wallace also shows us exactly how and where to spend exactly what money to make it all happen. Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor—fuck, even Mr. President—please read this book NOW.

LISA PHILLIPS