Description:
Over forty interviews and essays with leading cultural icons who have unique ways of critiquing "the system" with humor and ingenuity.
Dazzling deceptions and provocative put-ons from some of the most outrageous artists and personalities. Spontaneous, improvised craziness from the Underground in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and points in between. From artists, Bruce Conner and Mark Pauline to radical organizer/writer, Abbie Hoffman, to performance artists Karen Finley and Harry Kipper (and the list goes on) -- the interviewees each have a quirky and distinctive way of commenting on life. Here are an exhaustive number of anecdotes and philosophies, heavily illustrated with photographs and clippings from their travails.
A prank is a trick, a mischievous act, and a ludicrous act. Although not regarded as poetic or artistic acts, pranks constitute an art form and genre. In Pranks!, classic pranksters such as Monte Cazazza, Jello Biafra, Joe Coleman, Henry Rollins, John Waters and Henry Rollins challenge the sovereign authority of words, images and behavioral convention.
Brief description:
V. Vale is a documentarian who champions underground art-world figures. He has worked with subjects such as J.G. Ballard, W.S. Burroughs, and Mark Pauline, as well as early punk rockers, tattoo artists, Incredibly Strange musicians and filmmakers, and many other non-commercial, on-the-edge artists. Vale has contributed to countless literary undertakings, films, and events, and has published over 40 books with RE/Search and Search & Destroy, his imprints. Vale has documented underground culture and the characters that inhabit it for almost 50 years.
Review Quotes:
"The definitive treatment of the subject, offering extensive interviews with 36 contemporary tricksters."--Washington Post
"This book has inspired a new genre of prank phone call recordings, performances and videos based on pranking, and other dubious achievements."--Comic Revue