Paul Thek: Tales the Tortoise Taught Us

by Paul Thek (Artist), Roberto Ohrt, Axel Heil

There are some artists who are never forgotten simply because other artists will constantly cite them as examples. Paul Thek (1933-1988) is one such artist. Revered for his disarming humor and irreverent handling of artworld proprieties, and much lamented for his premature death from AIDS at the age of 55, the likes of Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Paul McCarthy, Kim Gordon and Matthew Barney have all sung his praises. Tales the Tortoise Told Us is a three-part Thek compendium, composed of writing by Margit Brehm, Axel Heil and Roberto Ort (who discuss the artist's ambivalent relationship with his homeland, and Thek's odd place in the Beat and Hippie generation), a large spread of reproductions of Thek works and a chronologically-arranged survey of works from 1963 up to the artist's death in 1988.

Genres: Art

156 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thek is a favorite artist and this is a somewhat hard to find book. Overall the visual material and biographical notes are excellent, but the writing is typically clunky art world academese made a little worse by some difficult translations from German. A few typos, but otherwise an excellent resource on this incredible artist.

[Dana Sweeney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great resource on the career, philosophy, and legacy of American artist Paul Thek (1933-1988). Because Thek is a little lost to the archives, he is difficult to find good material on, even though his influence clearly touched many other creatives. “There are artists who have been saved from oblivion thanks solely to the fact that other artists have refused to let them go,” the book begins. “This book is about one of those.” I really appreciate everything this book accomplishes!

First, a bit on Thek and what drew me to learn more: he was a gay, Catholic artist. His 1970 untitled painting is the cover of Jameson Fitzpatrick’s stunning poetry collection , “Pricks in the Tapestry.” He dated and was a photographic subject for Peter Hujar, whose photo “Orgasmic Man” graces the now-iconic cover of Hana Yanagihara’s “A Little Life.” He was a friend and contemporary to both Andy Warhol and Tennessee Williams. His best friend Susan Sontag dedicated both “Against Interpretation” and “AIDS and it’s Metaphors” to Thek. She also read him Rilke on his deathbed, and called a priest to the hospital to perform Thek’s last rights as he died of an AIDS-related illness, like so many other queer artists of his generation. Learning the drip-drip-drip of all these incredible connections, all these artists and thinkers who are linked to him? I had to know more. Who IS this guy?

Now, on this particular book: the writing can be an obstacle. The language frequently struck me as over-embroidered and dense, the style smug, obscure. Sections of it gave me flashbacks to taking the LSAT (like, if you make those tests and are reading this, there is GREAT source material here for creating a challenging Reading Comprehension problem). But even so, there’s a lot of good info still tucked in there. And the color, design, and photographs of Thek’s work are all gorgeous. It is a beautiful book, and I know a hell of a lot more about Paul Thek now than when I started. So in those ways, the book REALLY works.

All told: an important resource! I’m grateful that this book exists and that I had the chance to learn from it, even though I was less charmed by the writing as a matter of personal preference.