Art and Culture # 96: The Coffee Table Book!
-For the Uncensored!
It’s irresponsible to confuse coffee table books with something that others don’t really have to think about. The Coffee Table Book almost seems like a relic of what Art Museums sell, in their infinite wisdom, of Rodan, Monet, or even failed art exhibits that seem to present that mortality in the childless world of adults that don’t often have real world accomplishments.
“Look at my new coffee table book of that exhibit where someone smashed their shit into the Virgin Mary,” or “look at this self-important Afro American studies major who draws African Myths into abstract pop art, let’s give him a brand new condo and Bentley. Let’s support that.”
Honestly, it’s more insufferable to visit rich well-to-do liberals who endlessly think Disney and Marvel are great, but they don’t probe psychological depths of society, but then, you won’t find coffee table books in a backwoods area. In between coffee table books, not too many people have a use for them. If coffee table books do present a lifestyle choice, or aesthetic pleasure, it’s to see how a favorite series can show off their merchandise while also appealing to their base.
It might seem like merchandising, it’s the weird possibility that every brand must find a way to bleed through the market of one single IP. Even Doom[1] and Doom Eternal[2] made excellent coffee table books showing off their art.
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Even Fallout 4 has an impressive coffee table book that somehow manages to show off more of the world than I ever played in a Fallout game. Even Clive Barker paints and makes art books for sale, especially if you’re more spookily inclined.[3]
It’s getting hard to convince me that coffee table books aren’t from another age when wealthy elites got to be able to invite childless couples over and pretend all the art they have seen moved them and they began such an artistic lifestyle. Mostly wealthy wall street asshats.
But coffee table books, in there condensed way, do offer a window into not just the coffee table, but what people see in their psyche, or images that present a perspective that words sometimes can’t express. The rage, apathy, and the haunting idea of leaving art behind that people will find themselves entranced with. The terrible conviction of art that stares back at them when they realize they have nothing left to share.
(Gustave Dore’s interpretation of Paradise Lost, above, remains unparalleled in art and dramatic black and white style)
Because if the coffee table book is for fans of IP’s who will buy the Gustave Dore artbooks that will sit on the shelves as lonely as they can be. True art is made in loneliness but what is a legacy of art if it’s ready to be lost to only a certain category of wealthy elites? It’s time to take back the art books for the everyday man.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Art-DOOM-ID-SOFTWARE/dp/1616559349.
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Art-DOOM-Eternal-Bethesda-Softworks/dp/1506715540/ref=asc_df_1506715540/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=509062326676&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=783850333335268797&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9052282&hvtargid=pla-894121865229&psc=1.
[3] https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/clive-barker-visions-of-heaven-and-hell/490516/item/54156976/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9p6Gj47V-gIVGoTICh3FgwBnEAQYAiABEgLQnPD_BwE#idiq=54156976&edition=6257982.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 20 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline Part 2: Chaos, The Data Chase, The Disintegrating Bloodline part 3: Solvè, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, The God of Curiosity, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisBr88881650. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His newest book, The Voices Are Alive is out now: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/the-voices-are-alive/hardcover/product-mvggdg.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. If you do Subscribe, you have long term access to the paid articles that some readers won’t get to see or access after the articles/books go private. If that doesn’t tickle your pickle, I am also selling merch from t spring, if you want to help support me in other ways. I sell hoodies, shirts, phone cases, and trying to find something there loved ones would like. Links here: https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/too-many-strings-not-enough. https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/duck-fuckery. https://thereallouistbruno.creator-spring.com/listing/headless-corpo. Every little like, subscribe share, helps. Thanks for reading.