EXCERPT: In one of the last interviews he did, Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) chafed at the presumption that identity politics was central to his work: “Anything a black person does in terms of the ‘figure’ is put into a ‘political’ category. Let’s not fall into that stupid racial quicksand.” Skira’s five-volume survey of Hendricks’s work, copublished with Jack Shainman Gallery, seems designed to correct that limited view. Each installment is focused on a different part of his multivalent practice: works on paper, landscape paintings, basketball. The penultimate volume, BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS: PHOTOGRAPHY (SKIRA/Jack Shainman Gallery, $25), highlights subjects and media long eclipsed by the Black Power–era portraits Hendricks is famous for. His full-length realist paintings of mostly Black figures set against monochromatic backgrounds are celebrated for their sartorial swagger. But between 1984 and 2002, the artist stopped making these works. Instead, as these books bring to the fore, his output was dominated by other equally compelling interests, which the photography installment beautifully conveys.
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2803/the-season-s-outstanding-art-books-24606