Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 72

lx -7 4,., I iv tTl 1 LOOKERS r.i Uvert books or not, sex is the '92 photo erture, $35), Sally Mann's sometimes disturbing collection. These are the kind of family pictures most photographers wish they had taken of their own kids. Mann has her critics. Many of the pictures show Emmett, Jessie and Virginia naked or topless or clad only in underwear, and she has been accused of exploiting their incipient sexuality. Other photographs are violent.

In still others the children look unset-tlingly like beautiful adults. Mann seems to be trying, in an ongoing project, to capture her children in moments that might reveal future personality traits that would be recognized only in retrospect. In that way, she is giving her children a gift for which someday they will be grateful. Mike Smith is the Free Press photo director and the father of two frequently, but conventionally, photographed young daughters. pllil IliiliKsJiil oir.

Rivers dwells on the personalities and the sense of New York as the center of the art world. His story will make a terrific movie. "The Art Pack," by Christopher Frayling, Helen Frayling and Ron van der Meer (Alfred A. Knopf, $40), is such an obvious and fine idea, it's hard to believe someone didn't think of it sooner. It is an introduction to the basic terms and concepts of art and art history for the novice using three-dimensional pop-ups.

The authors pick 20 great paintings from the history of art since the Middle Ages and use them as examples to explain art terms, art history and artists. They also do fold-outs on color theory, light, form, motion and the artist-at-work. The book is exceptionally well done for anyone who wants an introduction to art. Another nice gift is "Italian, French, English and Spanish Drawings and Watercolors: The Collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts," with an introduction by Ellen Sharp (Hudson Hills Press, $75). This is the third in the DIA series, and it is a handsome document of works on paper that spend most of their time in drawers because they're so fragile.

Like its predecessors, this book illustrates the strength of the DIA's holdings of European graphics. Marsha Miro is the Free Press art critic. Yes, she owns "real" art. Silent-film comedian Harold Lloyd took these 3-D photographs between 1940 and 1970. James Randi has written a gossipy history of magic and its practitioners.

"It's about fantasies," Madonna writes in "Sex." A good rule for life is that fantasies are best kept to oneself. Grossberg because a nightclub emcee dubbed him Larry Rivers when he was playing the saxophone. He knew he was really at his own wedding reception at his parents' apartment when his mother took the plastic covers off the French provincial furniture. And he has "had erections in all sorts of situations" his whole life. Rivers does mention his art.

"I needed something definite on which to hinge the mystery of art The Henri Matisse exhibit catalog contains lush and accurate reproductions. and that definite something took the form of common references from national myths to autos, playing cards, menus and paper money. I didn't think then and don't now that self-expression is much of a reason to paint." That's as close as Rivers gets to artistic philosophy. The book is a raucous, ribald mem Napoleon's story gets lavish treatment. theme in "The Art Pack" uses pop-ups in an exceptional introduction to art concepts and terms.

1 Larry Rivers' book goes light on artistic philosophy, heavy on art world personalities. This companion to the ABC television documentary stands well on its own. Larry Rivers knew he was really at his own wedding reception at his parents' apartment when his mother took the plastic covers off the French provincial furniture. By Mike Smith arely do photo books make best-seller lists, let alone news pages, but this is one of those years. I'm not sure that's good.

But the best picture books of the year are a litmus test for where you stand on sexual inclinations and censorship. "Sex" (Warner, Madonna's already overexposed book, is impossible to ignore. But I'd like to. She talks dirty. She looks dirty.

The pictures, by Steven Meisel, are shot with a Helmut Newton attitude, minus the quality. Worse than the pictures is the prose. "Sex" reads like a high school yearbook. "Everything in this book is a lie. I made it all up," Madonna writes.

"It's about fantasies." A good rule for life is that fantasies are best kept to oneself. Although it hasn't earned the publicity "Sex" has, "Mapple-thorpe" (Random House, $125) is not a volume to leave lying around the house for young eyes and prudish friends. This book contains the infamous gay sex photos (with bull-whips, fists, etc.) that inspired obscenity charges against the director of Cincinnati's art museum. The difference between the late Robert Mapplethorpe's disturbing photos and Meisel and Madonna's naked offerings is the difference between reality and make-believe and the difference between great photography and overproduced fantasy. Mapplethorpe's pictures of people show complete trust between photographer and subject.

All the pictures are formal, beautifully lit, painstakingly composed. His control of light, shadow and texture is virtually complete. "Playing with the edge" was Mapplethorpe's phrase for pushing the limits of his photography. Before he was old enough to buy them, Mapplethorpe was fascinated by the cellophane-covered sex magazines in the shops on New York's grimy 42nd Street. He wanted to take similar pictures in an art gallery context, and in so doing he definitely played with the edge between pornography and art.

At times, the viewer will be pushed over the edge, too. Also controversial, but compelling, is "Immediate Family" (Ap 700 illustrations and clear, anecdotal writing organized around them. It reads in chunks, like a magazine easy to pick up and put down. You don't have to be a history buff to like this book. Easily as impressive is "Napoleon: An Intimate Account of the Years of Supremacy," produced and edited by Proctor Patterson Jones (Random House, $85).

This lavish presentation of illustrations and writing also is organized in chunks that could be read over months. The eyewitness text comes from the writing of Napoleon's valet and secretary. This huge book earns its price. Slightly less hefty, but of only slightly less historical significance, is "A Really Big Show: A Visual History of the Ed Sullivan Show," with text by John Leonard (Viking Penguin, $35). From 1948 to 1971, 50 million Americans Sally Mann's ongoing photography project captures her children in sometimes unsettlingly adult images.

spent 8-9 p.m. Sundays watching a stunning array of talent picked by the klutzy, inarticulate man who defined American taste in the 1950s and '60s. The text, by New York magazine's witty TV critic, in- eludes examples of Sullivan's wonderfully inept lines, such as his introduction of Jose Feliciano: "He's blind and he's Puerto Rican!" In "Conjuring," by James Randi (St. Martin's Press, the bizarre history of magic makes very good reading in a gossipy, picture-filled book organized around the stories of magicians and tricks. Imagine Marilp Monroe popping out at you in 3-D.

She does often in "3-D Hollywood," by Harold Lloyd and Susan Lloyd Hayes (Simon Schuster, $35). These photographs were taken between 1940 and 1970 by silent comedian Harold Lloyd, known to intimates as "Stop the Car Harry!" for his enthusiastic photography. These 3-D photos include movie stars of the times and Hollywood scenery, collected with a loving eye by his granddaughter, whom he raised; 3-D glasses are included. You might drool over "Hollywood Jewels," by Penny Prod- dow, Debra Healy and Marion Fael (Harry N. Abrams, Much of the jewelry in those glamorous old Hollywood movies was real.

This sensuous book shows stars wearing the fabulous jewelry in the movie scenes, then shows the pieces of jewelry and tells their offscreen stories. They don't make 'em like they used to. Free Press homes editor Judy Rose says she 's building an igloo out of her coffee-table books and will emerge in spring. The Art World BY MARSHA MIRO This is not a year that will be remembered for ultra-pricey, luxurious art books. But it is ripe with creative and thought-provoking alternatives, good documents and lots of picture books.

At the top of the list are $75 catalogs (published by Abrams) for the Henri Matisse exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and the Rene Ma- gritte show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Both books are loaded with lush and accurate reproductions. This is no easy feat with Matisse, who could make color do extraordinary things. And Magritte did such wild, unexpected and surreal things with images, just thumbing through this compendium is a trip on the edge. The best art read, by far, is Larry Rivers' autobiography, "What Did I Do?" (HarperCollins, $30).

Enter pop artist Rivers' time warp, and you discover: He changed his name from Irving The late Robert Mapplethorpe completely controls light, shadow and texture, in this 1982 portrait of Donald Cann. I ill i For The Coffee Table by Judy rose When we think of coffee-table books, we usually think of books with great pictures. While there are plenty of those, this year many combine really good illustrations with really good writing. "Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography," by Philip B. Kunhardt Philip B.

Kunhardt III and Peter W. Kunhardt (Alfred A. Knopf, $65), would appear to be a family project. Abraham Lincoln and the art of photography came of age at the same time, so there is a huge photographic record of Lincoln's life. Although this book is the companion to the ABC television documentary on Lincoln, it easily stands alone.

It has fine visuals A 1 DETROIT FREE PRESS-I DETROIT 18, 1902.