Ida Applebroog and the Book as a Performance

Abstract

This piece has been conceived by its author as a reading—or, more precisely, as a performance—of a small book by the contemporary painter Ida Applebroog, self-published in the late seventies and entitled Life Is Good: A Performance. As an artist, Applebroog has continuously sought to reveal what might be called the "underside" of everyday life. She "reads" the commonplace as an arena of deceit. She reveals in her reading what convention allows us to forget. In that spirit, this piece is a reading of the conventions of reading, with Applebroog serving as a guide.