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I Love Art
I Love Art is an idiosyncratic tour through of 105 artifacts and phenomena—from whale songs and soap operas to Shia LaBeouf and The Bible—tackled with zine pioneer, performance artist, and prolific writer Lisa Carver's inimitable enthusiasm and intelligence.
- GenresNonfictionArtEssays
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2019
2 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Crystal Carver
21 books109 followersLisa Crystal Carver (born 1968[1]), also known as Lisa Suckdog, is an American writer known for her writing in Rollerderby.[2] Through her interviews, she introduced the work of Vaginal Davis, Dame Darcy, Cindy Dall, Boyd Rice, Costes (her ex-husband with whom she performed Suckdog), Nick Zedd, GG Allin, Kate Landau, Queen Itchie & Liz Armstrong to many. A collection of notable articles from the zine was published as Rollerderby: The Book.
She started touring with the performance art band Psycodrama when she was 18 years old.[3] It was also at this time that she became a prostitute, which has been a major theme in her writings over the years.[4] She began touring with Costes a year later, and would also tour without him when he was in France. She toured the U.S. and Europe six times, the last time in 1998. The noise music soap operas included audience interaction including dancing and mock-rape of audience members.[3]
Carver is the also the author of Dancing Queen: a Lusty Look at the American Dream, in which she expounds upon various relics of pop culture past, including Lawrence Welk, roller rinks, and Olivia Newton-John. In 2005, Soft Skull Press released her newest book, Drugs Are Nice, detailing her early childhood and later romantic relationships with Costes, Boyd Rice and Smog's Bill Callahan. In addition to writing her own 'zines and books, Carver has also written for various magazines (including Peter Bagge's comic book Hate) and kept a fictionalized journal about her sex life for the website Nerve. Although Carver no longer writes her journal for the site, she is still a semi-regular contributor. The online Journal at Nerve was subsequently published in book form as The Lisa Diaries: Four Years in the Sex Life of Lisa Carver and Company. (via Wikipedia)
She started touring with the performance art band Psycodrama when she was 18 years old.[3] It was also at this time that she became a prostitute, which has been a major theme in her writings over the years.[4] She began touring with Costes a year later, and would also tour without him when he was in France. She toured the U.S. and Europe six times, the last time in 1998. The noise music soap operas included audience interaction including dancing and mock-rape of audience members.[3]
Carver is the also the author of Dancing Queen: a Lusty Look at the American Dream, in which she expounds upon various relics of pop culture past, including Lawrence Welk, roller rinks, and Olivia Newton-John. In 2005, Soft Skull Press released her newest book, Drugs Are Nice, detailing her early childhood and later romantic relationships with Costes, Boyd Rice and Smog's Bill Callahan. In addition to writing her own 'zines and books, Carver has also written for various magazines (including Peter Bagge's comic book Hate) and kept a fictionalized journal about her sex life for the website Nerve. Although Carver no longer writes her journal for the site, she is still a semi-regular contributor. The online Journal at Nerve was subsequently published in book form as The Lisa Diaries: Four Years in the Sex Life of Lisa Carver and Company. (via Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 27, 2019
Lisa Carver is a person and writer who doesn't give a shit about your book criticism, art criticism, tv movie criticism, etc. Your low art is her biggest thrill. High art is probably sort of blah to her. She recounts her experiences watching random bad tv or admiring popular celebrities just as thoughtfully as she describes her experiences in the art world. This book of brief, irreverent, unpretentious, and sometimes startling essays (like the ones on psychopath Gene Gregorits and actor Shia LaBeouf) fascinated me over and over. Her love of all kinds of art is inspiring.
April 22, 2019
I love Lisa Carver and I love her new book I LOVE ART, with illustrations by her daughter, Sadie. Lisa is almost everything I am not: enthusiastic, adventurous and open-minded. But she’s no pollyanna. She has opinions, often contradictory ones, but always interesting and unexpected. Everything can be art, and in short impressionistic chapters she writes odes to noise, bad TV and fine painting. I knew many of her subjects but not like she does and others I had to put the book down to look up. I wanted to know more about them all. And I can. Lisa’s a friend and I’d like to hold her hand and follow her into the maelstrom of life without fear or loathing, which is my baseline. I kept waiting, hoping, that I would appear in the pages I raced through. I just wanted to be part of the party. I wasn’t in the book, but of course I’m invited to live my life as much as she or any of those she admires. Art is surprisingly hard to define. Is it intention, connection, beauty? I don’t know, but I know when I see it. Lisa is an artist like the flame that ignites the fuse. Just read the book and wait for the boom.
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October 24, 2025I was reminded a bit of John Waters, in terms of taste- A bit low-brow maybe, but maybe the title of the book is misleading, as more than half of this collection is about more-or-less superficial TV or movies as "entertainment".
There's a fair amount of live music reports (or NOISE, shout out to Laundry Room Squelchers and Crank Sturgeon!), and some discussion of art (esp. G.W. Bush!) but I mostly enjoyed the little odd tidbits about watching 50 sci fi movies in a row, or watching TV in a Mexican restaurant, or people in prison singing (on youtube). Everything from opera to soap operas.
I enjoyed the chapter about buying art from a scammer in Haiti. The book taken as a whole feels like a lonely memoir of a person living in a desert, and it is an acquired taste, depending on how much time one has. I enjoyed the supplementary art, too.
There's a fair amount of live music reports (or NOISE, shout out to Laundry Room Squelchers and Crank Sturgeon!), and some discussion of art (esp. G.W. Bush!) but I mostly enjoyed the little odd tidbits about watching 50 sci fi movies in a row, or watching TV in a Mexican restaurant, or people in prison singing (on youtube). Everything from opera to soap operas.
I enjoyed the chapter about buying art from a scammer in Haiti. The book taken as a whole feels like a lonely memoir of a person living in a desert, and it is an acquired taste, depending on how much time one has. I enjoyed the supplementary art, too.
June 1, 2019
I will read anything Lisa Carver puts into the world but I especially liked this. Favorite parts were the piece on Juliet Escoria because I love her too, and also the piece about Gene Gregorits because it gave me info I didn’t have before.
May 28, 2019
The part about Hoarders makes me so mad.
May 6, 2024
I never wanted this to end!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews