Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1051441 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 156 pages

Customer Reviews

A Fabulous Book
Fans of Niagara's bands Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival obviously won't be able to live without this book, nor should they have to. It's full of great photos of the Queen of Detroit herself, alone and with friends like the late, great and sadly missed Ron Asheton. It also has some intriguing and amusing commentary about various happenings in Niagara's own handwriting - just enough to be really tantalizing - and also some short essays by other people about her art.

And then there's that fabulous art. This book has 70 consecutive pages of her paintings in brilliant, emphatic colour, and it's worth buying for those alone. One of the essays talks about how so many critics have mistakenly and inaccurately compared Niagara's art with people like Warhol and Lichtenstein. You know, pop art. Well, I like Warhol and Lichtenstein, too, but please... Niagara's way more playful than Warhol and sharper than Lichtenstein, and a lot more fun than either.

Anyone who thinks this is all just "pop art" or whatever should check out the dark, languorous, intricate pictures in the gorgeous "Opium" series - like so much of Niagara's art, death is close by in them, and they make closing in on death really seductive. This isn't pop art, it's art, period, and amazing art at that.

Niagara does what any great artist does - she creates a world that exists on its own terms. She has a deft way with the subtleties of facial expression, and she also has a lethal wit. Those femmes fatales in her pictures are cruel, sharp-tongued, ice-cold or superhot, dominant, often murderous, always beautiful, and they are tough tough tough. And they are very compelling.

This is a great book, and you should buy it.