Talk Art, the book, is way the ultimate way in which Russell Tovey and Robert Diament dethrone the absurd elitism that has kept people away from experiencing art every day, everywhere.
This project follows the success of their homonym worldwide famous podcast: Talk Art, which was established in 2018 and has gained more than one million faithful listeners to date.
When Russell Tovey, one of the most famous English actors, mates up with one of the wittiest artists and gallerists alive, Robert Diament, to talk about art without pretensions, you know there is hope in this world.
Vanity Teen was exclusively invited to be part of this artistic movement. Thus, here you have the review of this book you will want to own as soon as possible.
Talk Art | Book Review
Talk Art is a book that found a place where art critics, curators, and some artists lost their way because, while many of them use art to segregate and talk just to themselves, Russell Tovey and Robert Diament invite us into a journey to share with us their excitement for contemporary art and giving us ideas of how we can enjoy it, appreciate it, and live it.
Besides the colorful edition, friendly design, and honest ways the authors introduce themselves and show how they got involved with art, one of the things the readers will appreciate the most is the fact that this book puts efforts into presenting and celebrating the communities and some minorities that commonly have been ignored by art historians and many art textbooks.
Art for everyone
When you read Talk Art, you feel like their authors not only share their experiences involving contemporary art, describe the ways they came to know art, and share the stories of the artists who have been collaborating with this project of giving art a friendly and approachable face, but also realize that they became a couple of curators whose most important mission is using art as a way of acceptance and inclusion.
Also, Russell Tovey, Robert Diament, and their guests use contemporary art to start conversations that promote the importance of raising our voices in current times in which artistic expressions allow us to show our feelings, expose injustices, and demand social change.
Art as love and freedom
Reading Talk Art is also like if you have been invited to sit with the authors to have a chat among friends, a gathering in which you can openly talk about the things you love the most and like to share with the people you appreciate.
Each of its chapters shows us the different ways modern art can be represented and illustrates how we can be part of these emotional experiences that generate a social excitement you would not like to keep to yourself.
I would say that the biggest appealing of the book is the truth you sense in each word and image expressed in it; you perceive the passion that moves the authors to present this joyful book that explains how we can see art in pop culture, in social activities like fashion shows, music videos, live performances, and in intimates moments of our everyday life.
Talk Art came at the right moment, and we all definitely should have the opportunity to read it.
Before we go
Personally, Talk Art is the book I needed while back then when I was in high school to get into a world that looked so far from me and somehow seemed to be meant just for a few.
The subtitle of the book states that Talk Art is “Everything you wanted to know about contemporary art but were afraid to ask”; however, I say that is even more: Talk Art is a book that opens your senses and allows you to experience contemporary art in new ways that you would feel like this is the literary piece you have been expecting; after reading it, you will be like a kid who proves ice cream for the first time and wants more while smiles with inenarrable happiness.
Nevertheless, most importantly is to know that there are people like Russell Tovey and Robert Diament who have found out such bliss through art and have not hesitated to share it with every person.
Let us follow their example, let us talk about art, let us make art, let us spread love, and let us make the world hear what we have to say.