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Solomon, Andrew : The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists In A Time Of Glasnost

Alfred A. Knopf, New York City, NY, 1991

ISBN 0394585135

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 315 pages. The author's debut book. One of Andrew Solomon's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Andrew Solomon's "The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists In A Time Of Glasnost". His single rarest book, His ground-breaking account on the collapse of the Soviet Union from a singular vantage point, its banned artists and their subversively beautiful work. "Sotheby's auction of avant-garde Soviet art, held in Moscow in 1988, introduced to the West a generation of painters and sculptors who for years had been unable to exhibit their works in public. Solomon offers an intimate, thoughtful glimpse of Moscow's and Leningrad's artistic vanguards, walking on ice in the unpredictable thaw of Glasnost. The works range from Ilya Kabakov's obsessive re-creation of a Moscow communal apartment, citadel of misery, to painter Larissa Zvezdochetova's witty, kitschy demolition of Communist propaganda. This community of artists realizes that the new freedom may be rescinded overnight. To Solomon, their work is a warning, a sustained message that says simply, 'Beware, and remember' " (Publishers Weekly). "Solomon's observations are keen, particularly when he describes seeing the art in the Western context. He writes extremely well about art and its relation to society" (Library Journal). That is to say, from an explicitly anti-Marxist and anti-materialist perspective: "As for their work, when stripped of context, it was stripped of its immediacy and much of its meaning. Seeing their work was like seeing the artifacts of a lost or distant civilization" (Andrew Solomon). An absolute "must-have" title for Andrew Solomon collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed, placed, and dated in black ink-pen on the title page by the author: "Andrew Solomon 1. V. 2016 Chicago". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Solomon was one of the "headline" artists of the Chicago Humanities Festival 2016 during which event his signature was obtained. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed, placed, and dated copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Award in 2001 for "The Noonday Demon". One of the greatest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ANDREW SOLOMON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0394585135.

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