I got this an arc on Netgalley because the 30th anniversary edition has just come out! I hadn't yet read Art on my mind but just like other works by bell hooks I find myself immediately in love with how her work just flows and resonates. The artists and art discussed are inspiring to read about it. The 30th anniversary is a good reason to finally pick this work up, if you haven't already.

Thank you to The New Press for an eArc of this book to read and review.

I took an art class a year ago and honestly I wish I had this book to read while taking the class. I think this is a great dive into the critique and intent of Black art. While art, from a eurocentric perspective, isn't for liberation and follows academic constraints, art is a tool for liberation and hooks helps us see that.

She highlights different pieces of art and artists throughout these essays and interviews. I would say one thing I wish the book had more of were the pieces of art she sometimes talks at length about, but we don't get to see. hooks highlights how Black art is anti-imperialist and how it is not understood from the eurocentric critics and audiences.

I will be looking at art a lot more honestly now and searching for the ways to engage with art that are often overlooked.

Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in May. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/4zoXuMKGD2A?si=FM5rgOCbRjNGDytn&t=1112

“…the point is that most Black folks do not believe that the presence of art in our lives is essential to our collective well-being.”

Through essays & interviews bell hooks explores the intersection of art, identity politics, and social justice. She “examines the way race, sex and class shape who makes art, how it sells and who values it", while questioning how art can be instrumental for Black liberation. Her essays are critical, passionate, and thought provoking. bell hooks challenged the white Western art canon and spoke plainly about the way Black art is commodified and stripped of its cultural significance to fit a Eurocentric mold. Anyone in the art world will have a deep appreciation for this book. Highly recommend!
Thank you Netgalley and The New Press!

Bell Hooks is incisive, cerebral and direct. She uses her voice and avocacy for change in this book to look at art and invoke the need to decolonize art and let both artists and art critics view the medium through a Black gaze. Through interviews with Black artists, references to art critics who missed what the artist was portraying, and reviewing artists who have found critical acclaim in both traditional art and in Black culture, she looks at where we are and where we have yet to go. As a White woman, I learned so much (as I always do) from Bell Hooks. This book made me think critically and want to view more folk art and Black art, and I hope that more artists will be empowered to share their art as a result.

I love bell hooks, just to get that out of the way. All About Love is one of my favourite books, so I was so excited to get the arc copy, and it did not disappoint. She has a way of writing that connects you to the story, no matter how far away from the subject matter you are or how little you know about it. She was truly one of the greatest writers of a generation. Five stars; I wish I could give it more!

In Art on My Mind, bell hooks offers a powerful, deeply personal exploration of how art intersects with race, gender, class, and liberation. Her essays are both critical and intimate, challenging the white, Western art canon while celebrating the voices and visions of Black artists. I was especially moved by her reflections on representation and the conversations with artists like Carrie Mae Weems and Emma Amos. This collection is as urgent and relevant now as it was thirty years ago—a must-read for anyone who believes art can be a force for freedom.

I’d been patiently waiting in line for this book at my local library (20 people ahead of me!) so I was incredibly grateful to receive an ARC from NetGalley and The New Press.

Art on My Mind is a powerful collection of essays and interviews in which bell hooks brings critical attention to Black artists by centering them, their work, and their voices. Originally published 30 years ago, this anniversary edition doesn’t add new content, but its relevance hasn’t faded one bit. hooks challenges the way Black art is too often boxed in, interpreted solely through a political or autobiographical lens, instead of being seen for its full creative depth.

bell hooks is someone I think I will always come back to. There is something about her writing that makes me feel as if we are out on a porch late at night getting deep into specific topics of conversation. Especially because I don't agree specifically with everything she says which makes it feel all that more real! As someone who nearly failed her art history class in college I thought I wouldn't enjoy this book that much but I definitely did. Every time she mentioned a specific work or a specific artist I found myself immediately Googling them and wanting to find out more. That is why it took me a bit longer to read, I kept pausing after almost every paragraph to take in what I'd just read. That is the sign of some great work.

First of all i would like to thank The New Press for the ARC¿ (kinda ARC¿) Since upon researching there's already a book named 'Art on My Mind' also by bell hooks published in 1995 aaaaaaaand this is the 30th anniversary edition :) with the original text and essays being preserved with no additional apparatus or annotations (or so I've researched). Just an additional new commissioned foreword/introduction by Mickalene Thomas, so this review will only focus on the new media being released.

Cover: One that stood outs is the updated design and the cover, which consists of bell hooks in 8 beautiful photographs, my only criticism is the font present on the name and the title, it is rather odd that the text present on the photographs have this nostalgic handwriting vibe going on whilst the title, the author name, and the "Visual Politics" have this simplistic, modern, and linear vibe, which is strange because in a contrasting perspective, the photographs have much more emphasis while the infos are left on the top and bottom sides.

The Introduction by Mickalene Thomas: The introduction is a well thought out commentary on the empowerment and influence that bell hooks did on the future of people of color and the legacy of the art created to convey messages from the mind. It has many insights on the commercialization and the way complex art has been reduced to small products and the impact of visual politics through art, plus with the emergence of the internet when art can be more accessible, representations are more expressed through different mediums.

Typography and Illustrations: Well i think i'm going a little bit too far fetched if i'm even going to comment on the typography 😭, but still, the formatting and the fonts are gentle for the eyes and the more enhance illustrations give the work more depth and leverage to the messages it tries to convey (and did well).

In conclusion this is a well written and well organized and packaged work of essay collection and truly brings back the original for the 30 years it has been on print, quite an admirable 30th anniversary edition 🫶.