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Interlock: Art, Conspiracy, and the Shadow Worlds of Mark Lombardi
In the fateful month of March 2000, shortly after opening a hugely successful show in New York that unveiled the more nefarious financial connections of Presidential candidate George W. Bush, the hugely ambitious Conceptual artist Mark Lombardi was found hanged in his studio, an apparent suicide. With museums lining up to buy his work, and the fame he had sought relentlessly at last within his reach, speculation about whether his death was suicide or murder has titillated the art world ever since. Lombardi was an enigma who was at once a compulsive truth-teller and a cunning player of the art game, a
political operative and a stubborn independent, a serious artist and a Merry Prankster, a meta physician if not a scientist.
Buoyed by his spidery, elusive diagrams describing the evolution of the shadow-banking industry to record-breaking heights from a decades-old alliance between intelligence agencies, banking, government and organized crime, Mark Lombardi may be unique in art history as the only artist whose primary subject, the CIA, has turned around and studied him and his art work. Exhaustively researched, this is the first comprehensive biography of this immensely contradictory and brilliantly original artist whose pervasive influence in not only the art world, but also in the world of computer science and cyber-security is only now coming to light.
political operative and a stubborn independent, a serious artist and a Merry Prankster, a meta physician if not a scientist.
Buoyed by his spidery, elusive diagrams describing the evolution of the shadow-banking industry to record-breaking heights from a decades-old alliance between intelligence agencies, banking, government and organized crime, Mark Lombardi may be unique in art history as the only artist whose primary subject, the CIA, has turned around and studied him and his art work. Exhaustively researched, this is the first comprehensive biography of this immensely contradictory and brilliantly original artist whose pervasive influence in not only the art world, but also in the world of computer science and cyber-security is only now coming to light.
408 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 7, 2017
Mark Lombardi dropped onto my radar in 2016 while I was listening to a podcast in which his artwork and contentious life story was the subject. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about Mark and his art, so I picked up this book.
Interlock is Patricia Goldstone’s attempt to describe and justify the major events and relationships in artist Mark Lombardi’s life. The book is divided into two parts: the first focused on Mark Lombardi, and the second detailing the scandalous events that Mark portrays so cleanly in his artistic interlocks.
I breezed through part one, engrossed by all the mystery and intrigue swaddling Mark, his controversial artwork, and his untimely death. Mark’s work, while it appears so simple from a distance, shares immense detail when viewed up close. It connects networks of countries, companies, and individuals, showing how money, influence, and power move through each node. Mark’s drawings offer explanations for how scandalous economic and political events are able to take place outside of public knowledge.
Part two was very informative, but I struggled at times to follow. Admittedly, this is due in part to my barebones knowledge of the history and scandals of the 20th century. Run-on sentences packed with factual information also make it easier to lose track of all the people, places, and events that transpire (many times allegedly) in these scandals. Some inferences make pretty strained logical leaps in order to stoke conspiracy, which are inferences I tend to read with caution. It also doesn’t help matters that confusion is a crucial part of the events themselves. Scandals are purposefully obfuscated by their actors so that their misdeeds are more difficult to pinpoint.
All in all, this book has made me more interested in learning about the scandals of the 20th century and further opened my mind to the likelihood that our world economy depends on the actions of a few powerful, shadowy figures far more than we may be willing to believe.
Interlock is Patricia Goldstone’s attempt to describe and justify the major events and relationships in artist Mark Lombardi’s life. The book is divided into two parts: the first focused on Mark Lombardi, and the second detailing the scandalous events that Mark portrays so cleanly in his artistic interlocks.
I breezed through part one, engrossed by all the mystery and intrigue swaddling Mark, his controversial artwork, and his untimely death. Mark’s work, while it appears so simple from a distance, shares immense detail when viewed up close. It connects networks of countries, companies, and individuals, showing how money, influence, and power move through each node. Mark’s drawings offer explanations for how scandalous economic and political events are able to take place outside of public knowledge.
Part two was very informative, but I struggled at times to follow. Admittedly, this is due in part to my barebones knowledge of the history and scandals of the 20th century. Run-on sentences packed with factual information also make it easier to lose track of all the people, places, and events that transpire (many times allegedly) in these scandals. Some inferences make pretty strained logical leaps in order to stoke conspiracy, which are inferences I tend to read with caution. It also doesn’t help matters that confusion is a crucial part of the events themselves. Scandals are purposefully obfuscated by their actors so that their misdeeds are more difficult to pinpoint.
All in all, this book has made me more interested in learning about the scandals of the 20th century and further opened my mind to the likelihood that our world economy depends on the actions of a few powerful, shadowy figures far more than we may be willing to believe.
March 31, 2023
Hidden figures
The story of a graphic artist succeeding in representing the workings of a criminally-driven shadow economy with tentacles extending into legitimate financial markets, banks and government entities is an engrossing story on its own. But that is only part one of this fascinating (and at times unfathomable) account of how our post-globalized economy actually works. Part two dissects the details of the interlocks among organized crime, banking elites and political leaders and how that "system of systems" is what is actually keeping the visible economy aloft, but functioning now merely as a mask for the criminal enterprise that is the true economic power underpinning the world we only think we know. Just another conspiracy theory? Maybe. But there's plenty here to really sink (or gnash ) your teeth into this one.
The story of a graphic artist succeeding in representing the workings of a criminally-driven shadow economy with tentacles extending into legitimate financial markets, banks and government entities is an engrossing story on its own. But that is only part one of this fascinating (and at times unfathomable) account of how our post-globalized economy actually works. Part two dissects the details of the interlocks among organized crime, banking elites and political leaders and how that "system of systems" is what is actually keeping the visible economy aloft, but functioning now merely as a mask for the criminal enterprise that is the true economic power underpinning the world we only think we know. Just another conspiracy theory? Maybe. But there's plenty here to really sink (or gnash ) your teeth into this one.
July 23, 2022
admirable attempt to chart the postwar shadow economy of intelligence-organized crime-politics-business with a neat framing device of the suspicious suicide of an artist who also attempted to do this. but becomes a mind-numbing list of x knew y who invested in z in order to do x2. i'm really stupid about economics and finance stuff too. one of my goals is to get less stupid about it but this wasn't the book to do it with.
April 18, 2020
First half is biography second half is an exposition of Lombardi's research on the China Lobby to financial derivatives.
January 28, 2024
This is an amazing book, about an amazing story. If you are familiar with the art world and interested in the ways our country has been hijacked by oligarchs in mostly unreported deals, then this is a treasure chest. I saw some of his drawings exhibited at that time and it was almost like seeing a mirage or a manifestation of the divine. They were just simple line flow charts with names or numbers but, if you were following the news closely, you knew that this must be deeply revealing, and they seemed to vibrate with a presence that's indescribable. All of a sudden no other art in the room was of the same caliber.
Goldstone is dogged in her investigation of the secrets that Lombardi was on to, and she describes his path through the art world, the political world of coverups and his own personal world in intense detail... almost too much so, as some repetition occurs; not really a problem because there is so much to keep straight in your mind. And that's just the first half of the book. Then there's a Part 2 where she dives even deeper into the conspiracies, and I couldn't go with her... I was done. What an achievement. Brava!
Goldstone is dogged in her investigation of the secrets that Lombardi was on to, and she describes his path through the art world, the political world of coverups and his own personal world in intense detail... almost too much so, as some repetition occurs; not really a problem because there is so much to keep straight in your mind. And that's just the first half of the book. Then there's a Part 2 where she dives even deeper into the conspiracies, and I couldn't go with her... I was done. What an achievement. Brava!
May 23, 2024
Wow this is an amazing story and an amazing effort by the author! Meticulously researched and heavily documented, I was very impressed. I've been interested in Lombardi for quite some time and there's not a ton of info about him out there, so this was definitely an interesting read as far as that goes. Mark Lombardi's beginnings and history are only the first half of the book. The second half deconstructs the connections made in Mark's art and thoroughly legitimizes it. I was familiar already with many of the black market operations and covert acts discussed but this will surely lead to new rabbit holes. Much of what is written about in this book gets painted into the corner of conspiracy theory, but if you follow the documentation, you'll realize the financial world we live in, and by default, the real world, is quite the illusion and we are being sucked dry of the products of our labor in every way possible by well connected groups of bad actors. Great read!
Want to Read
August 5, 2019Lost interest by page 30. If I am to pay attention to so many "intriguing" details, I should be reading Larva.
March 24, 2025
Quite an eye opener about something you felt was there but could not quite put your finger on it...
January 16, 2026
Fascinating subject matter ranging from art, politics, law, to finance. Immensely suffered from run-on sentences, unfortunately
September 10, 2015
This is a rather special interest book. Although I have an interest in political intrigue, and had ready already about Danny Casolaro conspiracy theories, I was most interested in Mark Lombardi's artwork and the mind that produced it. The book fell somewhere between the two.
I got bogged down about 2/3rds in and didn't finish, for a couple reasons.
1. There was a fair amount of repetition among chapters. One ancillary artist's epigram, for example, was repeated about four times over the chapters I read. It wasn't THAT great. When the story failed to advance much, I lost confidence that reading the last third would repay my time.
2. It's a real shortcoming that this book's images fail to represent Lombardi's work except in passing. It may be an issue of rights or availability of the images, but readers who expect to get a good visual sense of individual works referenced or his body of work should be forewarned.
I did enjoy the chapter on Lombardi's foray into Texas and the author's description of Texas politics.
I got bogged down about 2/3rds in and didn't finish, for a couple reasons.
1. There was a fair amount of repetition among chapters. One ancillary artist's epigram, for example, was repeated about four times over the chapters I read. It wasn't THAT great. When the story failed to advance much, I lost confidence that reading the last third would repay my time.
2. It's a real shortcoming that this book's images fail to represent Lombardi's work except in passing. It may be an issue of rights or availability of the images, but readers who expect to get a good visual sense of individual works referenced or his body of work should be forewarned.
I did enjoy the chapter on Lombardi's foray into Texas and the author's description of Texas politics.
October 21, 2015
Won this book through goodreads give away. Really enjoyed this book. Very interesting & an easy read. Title seemed heavy...
April 1, 2016
(Content, 4*)
(Editing (excessive repetition of information throughout), 2*)
(Editing (excessive repetition of information throughout), 2*)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews