Dave Hickey R.I.P. Hickey is the third cultural critic to die this month who changed my way of thinking. In Hickey's case, his collection of essays, Air Guitar, blew my mind when it needed to be blown. I barely knew his work before Air Guitar, but I read the book when it came out. I was working on a film about Stan Brakhage, and Hickey had a cantankerous, dismissive piece about Warhol and Brakhage films that I found strangely appealing. I didn't agree with it but I still found Hickey's position liberating. There was something energizing about his insistence on speaking personally and honestly about his subjects, about his very active crossing of boundaries, and how that meant a series of "essays on art & democracy", including reflections on Hank WIlliams, Liberace, Cezanne, Perry Mason, LSD, Flaubert, Chet Baker, Lady Godiva, Siegfried and Roy... well, you get the picture. Hickey allowed me to get out of my critical and aesthetic rut.
