Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but is most often understood to refer to painting, film, photography, sculpture, and other visual media. Music, theatre, dance, literature, and interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, ''art'' referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts are distinguished from acquired skills in general.

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

Definition [link]

Britannica Online defines ''art'' as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. The first and broadest sense of ''art'' is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include ''artifact'', ''artificial'', ''artifice'', ''medical arts'', and ''military arts''. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

The second and more recent sense of the word ''art'' is as an abbreviation for ''creative art'' or ''fine art'' and emerged in the early 17th century. Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the ''finer'' things.

The word ''art'' can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (''art'' as discipline) are a collection of disciplines that produce ''artworks'' (''art'' as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and convey a message, mood, or symbolism for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Artworks can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. Although the application of scientific knowledge to derive a new scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something new, this represents science only and is not categorized as art.

Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference. However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.

The nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture". Art has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as ''mimesis'' or representation. Art as mimesis has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle. Goethe defined art as an ''other'' resp. a ''second nature'', according to his ideal of a style founded on the basic fundaments of insight and on the innermost character of things. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another. Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator. The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and was developed in the early twentieth century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a community develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation. George Dickie has offered an institutional theory of art that defines a work of art as any artifact upon which a qualified person or institution has conferred "the status of candidate for appreciation".

History[link]

Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave. Containers that may have been used to hold paints have been found dating as far back as 100,000 years.

Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in its art. Because of the size and duration of these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.

In Byzantine and Medieval art of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of Biblical and religious truths, and used styles that showed the higher glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless a classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.

Renaissance art had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three-dimensional picture space.

In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance, while religious painting borrowed many conventions from sculpture and tended to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines. China saw the flourishing of many art forms: jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the stunning terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, etc. Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and each one is traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang Dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming Dynasty paintings are busy and colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.

The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, or David's propagandistic paintings. This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism and fauvism among others.

The history of twentieth century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse. Similarly, the west has had huge impacts on Eastern art in the 19th and 20th centuries, with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting a powerful influence on artistic styles.

Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Theodor W. Adorno said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist." Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.

Forms, genres, media, and styles[link]

The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories, each related to its technique, or medium, such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts, or literature. Unlike scientific fields, art is one of the few subjects that are academically organized according to technique . An artistic medium is the substance or material the artistic work is made from, and may also refer to the technique used. For example, paint is a medium used in painting, and paper is a medium used in drawing.

An ''art form'' is the specific ''shape'', or quality an artistic expression takes. The media used often influence the form. For example, the form of a sculpture must exist in space in three dimensions, and respond to gravity. The constraints and limitations of a particular medium are thus called its ''formal qualities''. To give another example, the formal qualities of painting are the canvas texture, color, and brush texture. The formal qualities of video games are non-linearity, interactivity and virtual presence. The ''form'' of a particular work of art is determined by the formal qualities of the media, and is not related to the intentions of the artist or the reactions of the audience in any way whatsoever as these properties are related to content rather than form.

A ''genre'' is a set of conventions and styles within a particular medium. For instance, well recognized genres in film are western, horror and romantic comedy. Genres in music include death metal and trip hop. Genres in painting include still life and pastoral landscape. A particular work of art may bend or combine genres but each genre has a recognizable group of conventions, clichés and tropes. (One note: the word ''genre'' has a second older meaning within painting; ''genre painting'' was a phrase used in the 17th to 19th centuries to refer specifically to paintings of scenes of everyday life and is still used in this way.)

The ''style'' of an artwork, artist, or movement is the distinctive method and form followed by the respective art. Any loose brushy, dripped or poured abstract painting is called ''expressionistic''. Often a style is linked with a particular historical period, set of ideas, and particular artistic movement. So Jackson Pollock is called an Abstract Expressionist.

A particular style may have specific cultural meanings. For example, Roy Lichtenstein—a painter associated with the American Pop art movement of the 1960s—was not a pointillist, despite his use of dots. Lichtenstein used evenly spaced Ben-Day dots (the type used to reproduce color in comic strips) as a style to question the "high" art of painting with the "low" art of comics, thus commenting on class distinctions in culture. Pointillism, a technique in late Impressionism (1880s) developed especially by the artist Georges Seurat, employs dots to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to approximate the way people really see color. Both artists use dots, but the particular style and technique relate to the artistic movement adopted by each artist.

These are all ways of beginning to define a work of art, to narrow it down. "Imagine you are an art critic whose mission is to compare the meanings you find in a wide range of individual artworks. How would you proceed with your task? One way to begin is to examine the materials each artist selected in making an object, image video, or event. The decision to cast a sculpture in bronze, for instance, inevitably effects its meaning; the work becomes something different from how it might be if it had been cast in gold or plastic or chocolate, even if everything else about the artwork remains the same. Next, you might examine how the materials in each artwork have become an arrangement of shapes, colors, textures, and lines. These, in turn, are organized into various patterns and compositional structures. In your interpretation, you would comment on how salient features of the form contribute to the overall meaning of the finished artwork. [But in the end] the meaning of most artworks... is not exhausted by a discussion of materials, techniques, and form. Most interpretations also include a discussion of the ideas and feelings the artwork engenders."

Skill and craft[link]

Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy and or depth. Art is an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations. There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes. A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability, an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt's work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artist who would become the era's most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.

A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects ("ready-made") and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin's ''My Bed'', or Damien Hirst's ''The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'' follow this example and also manipulate the mass media. Emin slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating ''hands-on'' works of art.

Value judgment[link]

Somewhat in relation to the above, the word ''art'' is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions as "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception", (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity.

Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered ''art'' is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly understood that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. For example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3rd of May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.

The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the ''zeitgeist''.

Art is often intended to appeal to and connect with human emotion. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art may be considered an exploration of the human condition; that is, what it is to be human.

Purpose of art[link]

Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated (Levi-Strauss).

Non-motivated functions of art[link]

The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility. # ''Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm.'' Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility.

"Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry." -Aristotle

# ''Experience of the mysterious.'' Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." -Albert Einstein

# ''Expression of the imagination.'' Art provide a means to express the imagination in non-grammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are malleable.

"Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else – something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken." -Immanuel Kant

# ''Ritualistic and symbolic functions.'' In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.

"Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'." -Silva Tomaskova

Motivated functions of art[link]

Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product, or simply as a form of communication. # ''Communication.'' Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.

"[Art is a set of] artefacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication." -Steve Mithen

# ''Art as entertainment''. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games. # ''The Avante-Garde. Art for political change.'' One of the defining functions of early twentieth century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian Constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively referred to as the ''avante-garde'' arts.

"By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life." -André Breton (Surrealism)

# ''Art for psychological and healing purposes.'' Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy. # ''Art for social inquiry, subversion and/or anarchy.'' While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society.700px|thumb|center|[[Aerosol paint|Spray-paint graffiti on a wall in Rome]] Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stencilled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism). # ''Art for propaganda, or commercialism.'' Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object. # ''Art as a fitness indicator.'' It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by far exceeds what was needed for survival in the ancestral environment. One evolutionary psychology explanation for this is that the human brain and associated traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the human equivalent of the peacock's tail. The purpose of the male peacock's extravagant tail has been argued to be to attract females (see also Fisherian runaway and handicap principle). According to this theory superior execution of art was evolutionary important because it attracted mates.

The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i.e. the movie or video game.

Controversial art[link]

Théodore Géricault's ''Raft of the Medusa'' (c. 1820), was a social commentary on a current event, unprecedented at the time. Édouard Manet's ''Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe'' (1863), was considered scandalous not because of the nude woman, but because she is seated next to men fully dressed in the clothing of the time, rather than in robes of the antique world. John Singer Sargent's ''Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madam X)'' (1884), caused a huge uproar over the reddish pink used to color the woman's ear lobe, considered far too suggestive and supposedly ruining the high-society model's reputation.

In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso's ''Guernica'' (1937) used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils, to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's ''Interrogation III'' (1981), depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ'' (1989) is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts.

Art theories[link]

In the nineteenth century, artists were primarily concerned with ideas of ''truth'' and ''beauty''. The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin, who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. M. W. Turner, saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature.

The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.

The arrival of Modernism in the late nineteenth century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art, and then again in the late twentieth century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself". Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting: After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.

Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond ''high art'' to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.

Classification disputes[link]

Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art.

Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp's ''Fountain'', the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes, conceptual art, and video games.

Philosopher David Novitz has argued that disagreement about the definition of art are rarely the heart of the problem. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art" (Novitz, 1996). According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper. For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst's and Emin's work by arguing "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work. In 1998, Arthur Danto, suggested a thought experiment showing that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than its inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood."

Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art; it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I, when he was making art from found objects. One of these, ''Fountain'' (1917), an ordinary urinal, has achieved considerable prominence and influence on art. Anti-art is a feature of work by Situationist International, the lo-fi Mail art movement, and the Young British Artists, though it is a form still rejected by the Stuckists, who describe themselves as anti-anti-art.

Art, class, and value[link]

Art is sometimes perceived as belonging exclusively to higher social classes. In this context, art is seen as an upper-class activity associated with wealth, the ability to purchase art, and the leisure required to pursue or enjoy it. The Palace of Versailles and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg illustrate this view: such vast collections of art are the preserve of the rich, of governments and wealthy organizations.

''Fine'' and expensive goods have been popular markers of status in many cultures, and they continue to be so today. There has been a cultural push in the other direction since at least 1793, when the Louvre, which had been a private palace of the Kings of France, was opened to the public as an art museum during the French Revolution. Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum.) But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status.

There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late 1960s and 1970s was to create art that could not be bought and sold. It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects" said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. "Democratic precepts revolving around the idea that a work of art is a commodity impelled the aesthetic innovation which germinated in the mid-1960s and was reaped throughout the 1970s. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art... substituting performance and publishing activities for engagement with both the material and materialistic concerns of painted or sculptural form... [have] endeavored to undermine the art object qua object."

In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works, invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces. Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. "With the widespread use of DVD recording technology in the early 2000s, artists, and the gallery system that derives its profits from the sale of artworks, gained an important means of controlling the sale of video and computer artworks in limited editions to collectors."

See also[link]

Art movement

Artist in residence

Formal analysis

List of artistic media

Outline of the visual arts

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

Arthur Danto, ''The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art.'' 2003

Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson (eds.) ''Art and Thought''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2003.

Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey (eds.) ''Art History and Visual Studies''. Yale University Press, 2002.

John Whitehead. ''Grasping for the Wind.'' 2001

Noel Carroll, ''Theories of Art Today.'' 2000

Evelyn Hatcher, ed. ''Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art.'' 1999

Catherine de Zegher (ed.). ''Inside the Visible''. MIT Press, 1996.

Nina, Felshin, ed. ''But is it Art?'' 1995

Stephen Davies, ''Definitions of Art.'' 1991

Oscar Wilde, "Intentions".

Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, "Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980." 2005

Further reading[link]

Augros, Robert M., Stanciu, George N., ''The New Story of Science: mind and the universe'', Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway, c1984. ISBN 0895268337 (this book has significant material on Art and Science)

Richard Wollheim, ''Art and its Objects''

Carl Jung, ''Man and His Symbols''

Benedetto Croce, ''Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 1902''

Władysław Tatarkiewicz, ''A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics'', translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.

Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?, 1897

Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Florian Dombois, Ute Meta Bauer, Claudia Mareis and Michael Schwab, eds., Intellectual Birdhouse. Artistic Practice as Research. London: Koening Books, 2011.

Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson, eds., Art and Thought. London: Blackwell, 2003.

Antony Briant and Griselda Pollock, eds., Digital and Other Virtualities. NY: I.B.Tauris, 2010.

Carol Armstron and Catherine de Zegher, eds., Women Artists at the Millenium. Massachusetts: October Books/The MIT Press, 2006.

External links[link]

''Art and Play'' from the Dictionary of the History of ideas

In-depth directory of art

''Art and Artist Files in the Smithsonian Libraries Collection'' (2005) Smithsonian Digital Libraries

Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) – online collections from UK museums, galleries, universities

RevolutionArt – Art magazines with worldwide exhibitions, callings and competitions

Category:Aesthetics

kbd:Гъуазджэ ar:فن an:Arte roa-rup:Artã ast:Arte gn:Mba'eporã ay:Yäpa az:İncəsənət bn:শিল্প zh-min-nan:Gē-su̍t ba:Сәнғәт be:Мастацтва be-x-old:Мастацтва bg:Изкуство bar:Kunst bo:སྒྱུ་རྩལ། bs:Umjetnost br:Arz ca:Art cs:Umění co:Arte cy:Celfyddyd da:Kunst de:Kunst et:Kunst el:Τέχνη es:Arte eo:Arto ext:Arti eu:Arte fa:هنر hif:Art fr:Art fy:Keunst fur:Art ga:Ealaín gv:Ellyn gd:Ealain gl:Arte gan:藝術 gu:કલા hak:Ngi-su̍t ko:예술 hy:Արվեստ hi:कला hr:Umjetnost io:Arto ig:Ǹkà id:Seni ia:Arte ie:Arte os:Аивад is:List it:Arte he:אמנות jv:Seni kl:Eqqumiitsuliorneq kn:ಕಲೆ ka:ხელოვნება kk:Өнер kw:Art sw:Usanii ht:La (aktivite) ku:Huner ky:Көркөм өнөр lad:Arte lo:ສິລະປະກຳ la:Ars lv:Māksla lb:Konscht lt:Menas lij:Arte li:Kuns jbo:larcu lmo:Art hu:Művészet mk:Уметност mg:Kanto ml:കല mt:Arti mr:कला xmf:ხელუანობა arz:فن mzn:هنر ms:Seni mwl:Arte mn:Урлаг my:အနုပညာ nah:Tōltēcayōtl nl:Kunst nds-nl:Keunst ja:芸術 nap:Arte no:Kunst nn:Kunst oc:Art mhr:Сымыктыш pfl:Kunschd pnb:آرٹ pap:Arte nds:Kunst pl:Sztuka pt:Arte ro:Artă qu:Kapchiy rue:Уменя ru:Искусство sah:Дьоҕур sco:Airt stq:Kunst sq:Arti scn:Arti si:කලාව simple:Art ss:Buciko sk:Umenie sl:Umetnost so:Fan ckb:ھونەر sr:Уметност sh:Umetnost su:Seni fi:Taide sv:Konst tl:Sining ta:கலை kab:Taẓuri th:ศิลปะ tg:Санъат tr:Sanat uk:Мистецтво ur:فن vec:Arte vi:Nghệ thuật fiu-vro:Kunst wa:Årt war:Arté wo:Fànn wuu:艺术 yi:קונסט yo:Ọnà zh-yue:藝術 zea:Kunst bat-smg:Mens zh:艺术

name	Leonard Nimoy
birth date	March 26, 1931
birth place	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
birth name	Leonard Simon Nimoy
nationality	American
residence	Los Angeles, U.S.
home town	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
television	the original ''Star Trek'' series
occupation	Actor, film director, poet, photographer, singer, songwriter
years active	1951–present
spouse	Sandra Zober (1954–1987)Susan Bay (1988–present) }}

Leonard Simon Nimoy ( ; born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series (1966–1969), and in multiple film, television, and video-game sequels.

Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in ''Kid Monk Baroni''. In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected ''Star Trek'' pilot, "The Cage", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven feature films and guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; ''TV Guide'' named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original ''Star Trek'' series, Nimoy starred in ''Mission: Impossible'' for two seasons, hosted the documentary series ''In Search of...'', and narrated ''Civilization IV'', as well as making several well-received stage appearances.

Nimoy's fame as Spock is such that both his autobiographies, ''I Am Not Spock'' (1977) and ''I Am Spock'' (1995) detail his existence as being shared between the character and himself.

Early life[link]

Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the West End, to Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). His father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of the city. His mother, Dora Nimoy (née Spinner), was a homemaker. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living with—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets' ''Awake and Sing!''. Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College in 1953 but failed to complete his studies, and in the 1970s studied photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has an MA in Education from Antioch College and an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio.

Nimoy served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1953 through 1955, alongside fellow actor Ken Berry and architect Frank Gehry.

Career[link]

Stage and screen[link]

Nimoy's film and television acting career began in 1951, but after receiving the title role in the 1952 film ''Kid Monk Baroni'', a story about a street punk turned professional boxer, he played more than 50 small parts in B movies, TV shows such as ''Dragnet'', and serials such as Republic Pictures' ''Zombies of the Stratosphere'' (1952). To support his family Nimoy often worked other jobs, such as delivering newspapers in the morning.

He played an Army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller, ''Them!'', a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie ''The Brain Eaters'', and had a role in ''The Balcony'' (1963), a film adaptation of the Jean Genet play. Together with Vic Morrow, he produced a 1966 version of ''Deathwatch'', an English language film version of Genet's play ''Haute Surveillance'', adapted and directed by Morrow and starring Nimoy.

On television Nimoy appeared as "Sonarman" in two episodes of the 1957–1958 syndicated military drama, ''The Silent Service'', based on actual events of the submarine section of the United States Navy. He had guest roles in the ''Sea Hunt'' series from 1958 to 1960 and had a minor role in ''The Twilight Zone'' episode "A Quality of Mercy" in 1961. He also appeared in ''Highway Patrol''. Throughout the 1960s Nimoy appeared in a number of other TV series including ''Bonanza'' (1960),''The Rebel'' (1960), ''Two Faces West'' (1961), ''Rawhide'' (episode, Incident Before Black Pass. 1961), ''The Untouchables'' (1962), ''The Eleventh Hour'' (1962), ''Combat!'' (1963, 1965), The series ''Daniel Boone'', and ''Perry Mason'' (1963), ''The Outer Limits'' (1964), ''The Virginian'' (1965) and ''Get Smart'' (1966). He appeared again in the 1995 ''Outer Limits'', again in the episode "I, Robot".

On the stage, Nimoy played the lead-role alien of a short run of Gore Vidal's ''A Visit to a Small Planet'' in 1968, shortly before the end of the ''Star Trek'' series. This play was staged at the now-folded Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois.

Nimoy and William Shatner first worked together on an episode of ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'', "The Project Strigas Affair" (1964). Their characters were from either side of the Iron Curtain, though with his saturnine looks, Nimoy was predictably the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

Nimoy first worked with DeForest Kelley in an episode of ''The Virginian'' from season two titled "Man of Violence", with Kelley as the doctor and Nimoy as the patient.

''Star Trek''[link]

}} Nimoy's greatest prominence came from his role in the original ''Star Trek'' series. As the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock—a role he chose instead of one on the soap opera ''Peyton Place''—Nimoy became a star, and the press predicted that he would "have his choice of movies or television series." He formed a long-standing friendship with Shatner, who portrayed his commanding officer, saying of their relationship, "We were like brothers." ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' was broadcast from 1966 to 1969. Nimoy earned three Emmy nominations for his work on the iconic program that has defined American television science fiction, both for fans of science fiction, and beyond.

He went on to reprise the Spock character in a voice-over role in ''Star Trek: The Animated Series'' (so much so, that the episode "Yesteryear" is the only ''ST:TAS'' episode to have been accepted as ''Star Trek'' canon). Two episodes of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and six Star Trek movies feature the original ''Star Trek'' cast. He played the elder Spock in the 2009 ''Star Trek'' movie, directed by J. J. Abrams, the film being widely credited with revitalizing the franchise.

Spock's Vulcan salute became a recognized symbol of the show identified with him. Nimoy created the sign himself from his childhood memories of the way ''kohanim'' (Jewish priests) held their hand when giving blessings. During an interview, he translated the Priestly Blessing which accompanied the sign and described it during a public lecture:

:''May the Lord bless and keep you and may the Lord cause his countenance to shine upon you. May the Lord be gracious unto you and grant you peace.''

Nimoy was asked to read these verses as part of his narration for ''Civilization IV''.

After ''Star Trek''[link]

Following ''Star Trek'' in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series ''Mission: Impossible'', which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert 'The Great Paris'. He played the role during the fourth and fifth seasons of the show from 1969 to 1971.

He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie ''Catlow'' (1971). He also had roles in ''Night Gallery'' (1972) and ''Columbo'' (1973) where he played a murderous doctor who was one of the few criminals with whom Columbo became angry. Nimoy appeared in various made for television films such as ''Assault on the Wayne'' (1970), ''Baffled'' (1972), ''The Alpha Caper'' (1973), ''The Missing Are Deadly'' (1974), ''Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris'' (1980), and ''Marco Polo'' (1982). He received an Emmy award nomination for best supporting actor for the TV film ''A Woman Called Golda'' (1982).

In 1975, Leonard Nimoy filmed an opening introduction to Ripley's World of the Unexplained museum located at Gatlinburg, Tennesse and Fisherman's Wharf at San Francisco, California. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series ''In Search of...'', which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. He also has a memorable character part as a psychiatrist in Philip Kaufman's remake of ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers''.

During this time, Nimoy also won acclaim for a series of stage roles. He appeared in such plays as ''Vincent'', ''Fiddler on the Roof'', ''The Man in the Glass Booth'', ''Oliver!'', ''Six Rms Riv Vu'', ''Full Circle'', ''Camelot'', ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'', ''The King and I'', ''Caligula'', ''The Four Poster'', ''Twelfth Night'', ''Sherlock Holmes'', ''Equus'' and ''My Fair Lady''.

''Star Trek'' films[link]

When a new ''Star Trek'' series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role. After directing a few television show episodes, Nimoy started film directing in 1984 with the third installment of the film series. Nimoy would go on to direct the second most successful film (critically and financially) in the franchise after the 2009 ''Star Trek'' film, ''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' (1986), and ''Three Men and a Baby'', the highest grossing film of 1987, made him a star director. At a press conference promoting the 2009 ''Star Trek'' movie, Nimoy made it clear that he had no further plans or ambition to direct:

}}

Other work after ''Star Trek''[link]

In 1978, Nimoy played Dr. David Kibner in ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers''. He also did occasional work as a voice actor in animated feature films, including the character of Galvatron in ''The Transformers: The Movie'' in 1986.

Nimoy was featured as the voice-over narrator for the CBS paranormal series ''Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories'' in 1991.

In 1991, Nimoy teamed up with Robert B. Radnitz to produce a movie for TNT about a ''pro bono publico'' lawsuit brought by public interest attorney William John Cox on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial. Nimoy also played the Mermelstein role and believes: "If every project brought me the same sense of fulfillment that ''Never Forget'' did, I would truly be in paradise."

Nimoy performed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in ''The Pagemaster'' in 1994. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in the made-for-television production of Aldous Huxley's ''Brave New World.''

Together with John De Lancie, another ex-actor from the Star Trek series, Nimoy created ''Alien Voices'', an audio-production venture that specializes in audio dramatizations. Among the works jointly narrated by the couple are ''The Time Machine'', ''A Journey to the Center of the Earth'', ''The Lost World'', ''The Invisible Man'', and ''The First Men in the Moon'', as well as several television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel. In an interview published on the official ''Star Trek'' website, Nimoy said that ''Alien Voices'' was discontinued because the series didn't sell well enough to recoup costs.

From 1994 until 1998, Nimoy narrated the ''Ancient Mysteries'' series on A&E; including "The Sacred Water of Lourdes" and "Secrets of the Romanovs". He also appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. In 1997, Nimoy played the prophet Samuel, alongside Nathaniel Parker, in The Bible Collection movie "David". He had a central role in ''Brave New World'', a 1998 TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley's novel where he played a character reminiscent of Spock in his philosophical balancing of unpredictable human qualities with the need for control. Nimoy has also appeared in several popular television seriesincluding ''Futurama'' and ''The Simpsons''as both himself and Spock.

Nimoy appeared in ''Hearts of Space'' program number 142 – "Whales alive."

In 1999, he voiced the narration of the English version of the Sega Dreamcast game ''Seaman'' and promoted Y2K educational films.

In 2000, he provided on-camera hosting and introductions for 45 half-hour episodes of an anthology series entitled ''Our 20th Century'' on the AEN TV Network. The series covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington D.C. and other private archival sources.

In 2003, he announced his retirement from acting to concentrate on photography, but subsequently appeared in several television commercials with William Shatner for Priceline.com. He appeared in a commercial for Aleve, an arthritis pain medication, which aired during the 2006 Super Bowl.

Nimoy provided a comprehensive series of voiceovers for the 2005 computer game ''Civilization IV''. He did the TV series ''Next Wave'' where he interviewed people about technology. He is the host in the documentary film ''The Once and Future Griffith Observatory'' currently running in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater located at the recently reopened Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.

In 2007, he produced the play, ''Shakespeare's Will'' by Canadian Playwright Vern Thiessen. The one-woman show starred Jeanmarie Simpson as Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway. The production was directed by Nimoy's wife, Susan Bay.

Nimoy was given casting approval over who would play the young Spock in the newest film.

On January 6, 2009, he was interviewed by William Shatner on Biography Channel's ''Shatner's Raw Nerve''.

In May 2009, he made an appearance as the mysterious Dr. William Bell in the season finale of ''Fringe'', which explores the existence of a parallel universe. Nimoy returned as Dr. Bell in the autumn for an extended arc, and according to Roberto Orci, co-creator of ''Fringe'', Bell will be "the beginning of the answers to even bigger questions." This choice led one reviewer to question if ''Fringe'''s plot might be a homage to the ''Star Trek'' episode "Mirror, Mirror", which featured an alternate reality "Mirror Universe" concept and an evil version of Spock distinguished by a goatee.

On the May 9, 2009 episode of ''Saturday Night Live'', Nimoy appeared as a surprise guest on the skit "Weekend Update". During a mock interview, Nimoy called old Trekkies who did not like the new movie "dickheads". In the 2009 ''Star Trek'' movie, he plays the older Spock from the original ''Star Trek'' timeline; Zachary Quinto portrays the young Spock.

Starring with Will Ferrell in the TV-based movie ''Land of the Lost'' in June 2009, he voiced the part of "The Zarn", an Altrusian.

Nimoy is also a frequent and popular reader for "Selected Shorts", an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City (that also tours around the country) which features actors, and sometimes authors, reading works of short fiction. The programs are broadcast on radio and available on websites through Public Radio International, National Public Radio and WNYC radio. Nimoy was honored by Symphony Space with the renaming of the Thalia Theater as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater.

Nimoy has also provided voiceovers for the ''Star Trek Online'' massively multiplayer online game, released in February 2010, as well as ''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep'' as the villainous Master Xehanort. Tetsuya Nomura, the director of ''Birth by Sleep'', stated that he chose Nimoy for the role specifically because of his role as Spock.

Retirement[link]

In April 2010, Leonard Nimoy announced that he is retiring from playing the signature character of Star Trek's Spock, citing both his advanced age and the desire to give Zachary Quinto the opportunity to enjoy full media attention with the Spock character. ''Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep'' was to be his final performance. However, in February 2011, he announced his definite plan to return to ''Fringe'' and reprise his role as William Bell. His retirement from acting has not included voice acting, as his appearance in the third season of ''Fringe'' includes his voice (his character appears only in animated scenes), and he provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in ''Transformers: Dark of the Moon''. In May 2011 Nimoy starred in the alternate version music video of Bruno Mars' ''The Lazy Song''. Aaron Bay-Schuck, the Atlantic Records executive who signed Bruno Mars to the label, is Nimoy's stepson. Nimoy provided the voice of Spock as a guest star in a Season 5 episode of the CBS sitcom, ''The Big Bang Theory''. The episode is titled "The Transporter Malfunction" and aired on March 29, 2012. He also lent his voice as narrator to the free documentary "Destiny in Space" showcasing video and images of space from nine shuttle missions over four years time. In spring 2012, Nimoy reprized his role of William Bell on ''Fringe'', in the fourth season episode "Letters of Transit".

Photography[link]

Nimoy's interest in photography began in childhood; he still owns a camera which he rebuilt at the age of 13. His photography studies at UCLA occurred after ''Star Trek'' and ''Mission: Impossible'', when Nimoy seriously considered changing careers. His work has been exhibited at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Writing[link]

Nimoy has written two volumes of autobiography. The first was called ''I Am Not Spock'' (1977) and was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character. In the book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock. The contents of this first autobiography also touched on a self-proclaimed "identity crisis" that seemed to haunt Nimoy throughout his career. It also related to an apparent love/hate relationship with the character of Spock and the Trek franchise.

}}

The second volume, ''I Am Spock'' (1995), saw Nimoy communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and himself. Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.

Nimoy has also written several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. His latest effort is titled ''A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life'' (2002). His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts. In the mid-1970s Nimoy wrote and starred in a one-man play called ''Vincent'' based on the play ''Van Gogh'' by Phillip Stephens.

In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of ''Primortals'', a comic book series published by Tekno Comix about first contact with aliens, which had arisen from a discussion he had with Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by Steve Perry.

Music[link]

During and following ''Star Trek'', Nimoy also released five albums of vocal recordings on Dot Records, including ''Trek''-related songs such as "Highly Illogical", and cover versions of popular tunes, such as "Proud Mary". He has described how his recording career got started:

:Charles Grean of Dot Records had arranged with the studio to do an album of space music based on music from ''Star Trek'', and he has a teenage daughter who's a fan of the show and a fan of Mr. Spock. She said, 'Well, if you're going to do an album of music from ''Star Trek'', then Mr. Spock should be on the album.' So Dot contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in either speaking or singing on the record. I said I was very interested in doing both. ...That was the first album we did, which was called ''Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space''. It was very well-received and successful enough that Dot then approached me and asked me to sign a long-term contract.

The albums were popular and resulted in numerous live appearances and promotional record signings that attracted crowds of fans in the thousands. The early recordings were produced by Charles Grean, who may be best known for his version of "Quentin's Theme" from the mid-sixties goth soap opera ''Dark Shadows''. These recordings are generally regarded as unintentionally camp, though his tongue-in-cheek performance of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" received a fair amount of airplay when Peter Jackson's ''The Lord of the Rings'' films were released.

In addition to his own music career he directed a 1985 music video for The Bangles' "Going Down to Liverpool". He makes a brief cameo appearance in the video as their driver. This came about because his son Adam Nimoy (now a frequent television director) was a friend of Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs from college. He released a version of Johnny Cash's song "I Walk the Line".

Nimoy's voice appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties. The song, "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" (released in 1988), reached No. 3 on the US Pop charts, and No. 1 on Dance charts. The group's self-titled LP contains several other samples from the original Star Trek television series.

Nimoy also appears in the alternate music video for the song "Lazy Song" by pop artist Bruno Mars.

Personal life[link]

Nimoy has long been active in the Jewish community, and he can speak and read Yiddish. In 1997, he narrated the documentary ''A Life Apart: Hasidism in America'', about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002, Nimoy published ''The Shekhina Project'', a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by Kabbalah.

Nimoy has been married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober (1927–2011), whom he divorced in 1987. He had two children with her, director Adam Nimoy and Julie Nimoy, who both appeared in an Oldsmobile commercial, with the tagline "This is not your father's Oldsmobile". In 1988, he married actress Susan Bay, who is a cousin of director Michael Bay.

In a 2001 DVD, Nimoy revealed that he became an alcoholic while working on ''Star Trek'' and ended up in rehab. William Shatner, in his 2008 book ''Up Till Now: The Autobiography'', speaks about how later in their lives Nimoy tried to help Shatner's alcoholic wife.

Nimoy still has the last pair of Spock's ears he wore on the series, as a memento. He has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in private life. Each weekend during the original run of the series, he would be in character throughout Saturday and into Sunday, behaving more like Spock than himself: more logical, more rational, more thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation. It was only on Sunday in the early afternoon that Spock's influence on his behavior would fade off and he would feel more himself again – only to start the cycle over Monday morning.

Nimoy also introduced the Vulcan nerve pinch in an early ''Star Trek'' episode "The Enemy Within". Initially, Spock was supposed to knock out an evil Kirk in the Engineering room by striking him on the back of the head. Nimoy felt that the action was not in keeping with the nature of Spock's character, so he suggested the "pinch" as a non-violent alternative, suggesting that Vulcans have the ability to emit energy from their fingertips, which, if applied to the correct nerve cluster, could render a human unconscious. Nimoy explained this to the episode's director and according to Nimoy, the director had no idea what he was talking about. However, Nimoy would express relief in later interviews and appearances that when he explained the concept to William Shatner, he understood it immediately, and Nimoy credits Shatner's reaction to the nerve pinch in the episode as what really sold it. In early scripts for ''Star Trek'', the nerve pinch was referred to as the "F.S.N.P.," which stood for "Famous Spock Neck Pinch."

He has remained good friends with co-star William Shatner (also of Ukrainian-Jewish descent) and was best man at Shatner's third marriage in 1997. Shatner is only four days older than Nimoy. He also remained good friends with DeForest Kelley until Kelley's death in 1999.

The Space Foundation named Nimoy as the recipient of the 2010 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for creating a positive role model that inspired untold numbers of viewers to learn more about the universe. An honor Nimoy did not receive, however, was the naming of asteroid 2309 Mr. Spock after his character, at least not directly. The asteroid was named by discoverer James B. Gibson after his pet cat, "Mr. Spock," said feline indeed being named after the ''Star Trek'' character.

In 2009, Nimoy was honored by his childhood hometown when the Office of Mayor Thomas Menino proclaimed the date of November 14, 2009 as ''Leonard Nimoy Day'' in the City of Boston.

Filmography[link]

Year	! Film	! Role	! Notes
1951		Young Ball Player
	''Kid Monk Baroni''	Paul 'Monk' Baroni
''Zombies of the Stratosphere''	Narab
1952	''Francis Goes to West Point''	Football player	Spoken part but uncredited
1953	''Old Overland Trail''	Chief Black Hawk
1954	''Them!''	Army Staff Sergeant
1954		Julius Carver & Karlo Rozwadowski	(TV series) Episodes "The Big Boys" in 1954 & "The Big Name" in 1959.
1956		Tom Kennedy & ?	(TV series) 2 episodes, "His Brother's Fist" (1956) & "Cold Peril" (1957)
1957		Harry Wells, Ray	(TV series) 2 episodes, as Harry Wells in "Hot Dust" (1957) & Ray in "Blood Money" (1958)
	''The Brain Eaters''	Professor Cole
''Sea Hunt''	Indio	(TV series) 6 episodes (1958–1960)
	''Bonanza''	Freddy	(TV series) Episode "The Ape"
''M Squad''	Bob Nash	(TV series) Episode "Badge for a Coward"
		Hansen	(TV series) (Episode "A Quality of Mercy")
	Anko	(TV series) Episode "Incident Before Black Pass"
		Pete Chennery	(TV Series) Episode "The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe"
''The Balcony''	Roger
	Lt. Beldon M.D.	(TV series) Episode "Man of Violence"
		Konig	(TV series) (Episode "Production and Decay of Strange Particles")
	Judson Ellis
''The Man From U.N.C.L.E.''	Vladeck	(TV series) Episode "The Project Strigas Affair"
	''Get Smart''	Stryker
''Gunsmoke''	John Walking Fox
''Daniel Boone''	Oontah	(TV series) (Episode "Seminole Territory")
	Jules LaFranc
1966	''Star Trek''		(TV series) (79 episodes)
1969			(TV series) (49 episodes)
	''Assault on the Wayne''	Commander Phil Kettenring	(TV)
''Catlow''	Miller
	''Baffled!''	Tom Kovack	(TV)
	Dr. Barry Mayfield	(TV)
''Star Trek: The Animated Series''		(voice) (22 episodes)
1974	''Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love''	Mick	(TV)
1976		Narrator(1976–1982)	(TV series)
1978		Dr. David Kibner
1979	''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''
1981			(TV)
	''A Woman Called Golda''	Morris Meyerson	(TV)
	Achmet	(TV mini-series)
''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''
	1983	''T.J. Hooker''	Paul McGuire	(TV Series) (Episode "Vengeance is Mine")
	''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock''
''The Sun Also Rises''	Count Mippipopolous	(TV)
	''The Transformers: The Movie''	Galvatron	(voice), main Decepticon antagonist/main villain
''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home''
''Faerie Tale Theatre''	The Evil Moroccan Magician	(TV Series) (Episode "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp")
1989	''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier''
		Mel Mermelstein	(TV)
''Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories''	Narrator	(TV)
''Star Trek: The Next Generation''		(TV series) (episodes "Unification (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
''[[Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''
1993		Mr. Moundshroud	(voice)
1994	''The Pagemaster''	Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Edward Hyde	(voice)
	''Bonanza: Under Attack''	Frank James	(TV)
	Thomas Cutler
''Titanica''	Narrator	(documentary)
1997	''David''	Samuel	(TV)
	''The Harryhausen Chronicles''	Narrator	(documentary)
	Mustapha Mond	(TV)
	''Seaman (video game)''	Narrator	(video game)
''Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists''	Akron/Baraka/King Chandra	(voice)
2001		Professor Emmett Fowler	(TV series) (episode "The TorMentor")
		Spock	(TV series) (episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before")
''Atlantis: The Lost Empire''	King Kashekim Nedakh	(voice)
2005	''Civilization IV''	Narrator	(video game), (voice)
		(voice)
2009-2012			recurring role
	''Star Trek Online''	Mr. Spock (Narrator)	(video game), (voice)
''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep''		(video game), (voice)
2011	''Transformers: Dark of the Moon''	Sentinel Prime (also as Spock on a television set in the background)	(voice)
2012	''The Big Bang Theory	Action Figure Spock	(voice)

Director[link]

''Vincent'': Based on the play "Van Gogh" by Phillip Stephens (1978–1981)

''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' (1984)

''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' (1986)

''Three Men and a Baby'' (1987)

''The Good Mother'' (1988)

''Funny About Love'' (1990)

''Holy Matrimony'' (1994)

episodes of ''Night Gallery'', ''T.J. Hooker'', ''The Powers of Matthew Star'' and ''Deadly Games''

Videography[link]

Music videos[link]

"Bilbo Baggins" by Leonard Nimoy

"Going Down to Liverpool" by The Bangles (1985)

"The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars (2011)

Writer[link]

Bibliography[link]

''I Am Not Spock'' (1977)

''Vincent: Based on the play "Van Gogh" by Phillip Stephens'' (1978)

''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979) (Contributions uncredited) ''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' (1984) (Contributions uncredited)

''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' (1986)

''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' (1991)

''I Am Spock'' (1995)

''Shekhina'' photography (2005) (ISBN 978-1-884167-16-4)

''The Full Body Project'' (2008)

Poetry[link]

''You & I'' (1973) (ISBN 978-0-912310-26-8)

''Will I Think of You?'' (1974) (ISBN 0912310701)

''We Are All Children Searching for Love: A Collection of Poems and Photographs'' (1977) (ISBN 978-0-88396-024-0)

''Come be With Me'' (1978) (ISBN 978-0-88396-033-2)

''These Words are for You'' (1981) (ISBN 978-0-88396-148-3)

''Warmed by Love'' (1983) (ISBN 978-0-88396-200-8)

''A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life'' (2002) (ISBN 978-0-88396-596-2)

Discography[link]

:''See also: Leonard Nimoy discography (includes compilations and re-issues)''

''Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space'' (Dot Records), (1967).

''Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy'' (Dot Records), (1968).

''The Way I Feel'' (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25883), (1968).

''The Touch of Leonard Nimoy'' (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25910), (1969).

''The New World of Leonard Nimoy'' (Dot Records, Stereo DLP 25966), (1970).

References[link]

External links[link]

Leonard Nimoy's personal website

Leonard Nimoy's entry at Startrek.com

Leonard Nimoy at Alien Voices

Interview with Leonard Nimoy at hossli.com

Leonard Nimoy Poetry and Photography on The HyperTexts

Interview with Leonard Nimoy by the Archive of American Television (2000)

2010 Interview with Nimoy about his "Secret Selves" show at Mass MoCA

Media[link]

Newsmaker of the Week: Leonard Nimoy (30-min. interview, free)

Archive of American Television Interview with Leonard Nimoy Nov 2, 2000

Interview with Leonard Nimoy about photography, on ''The Callie Crossley Show''

Category:1931 births Category:Living people Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American military personnel of the Korean War Category:American Orthodox Jews Category:American poets Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:American television actors Category:American television directors Category:American voice actors Category:American video game actors Category:Antioch College alumni Category:English-language film directors Category:Jewish actors Category:Dot Records artists Category:Actors from Boston, Massachusetts Category:United States Army soldiers

an:Leonard Nimoy bn:লেনার্ড নিময় ca:Leonard Nimoy cs:Leonard Nimoy da:Leonard Nimoy de:Leonard Nimoy es:Leonard Nimoy eo:Leonard Nimoy eu:Leonard Nimoy fa:لنارد نیموی fr:Leonard Nimoy hr:Leonard Nimoy id:Leonard Nimoy it:Leonard Nimoy he:לאונרד נימוי hu:Leonard Nimoy nl:Leonard Nimoy ja:レナード・ニモイ no:Leonard Nimoy pl:Leonard Nimoy pt:Leonard Nimoy ro:Leonard Nimoy ru:Нимой, Леонард simple:Leonard Nimoy fi:Leonard Nimoy sv:Leonard Nimoy tr:Leonard Nimoy uk:Леонард Німой zh:伦纳德·尼莫伊

name	Michael Monroe
background	solo_singer
birth name	Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm
alias	Flashing Psychedelic Kid
birth date	June 17, 1962,
Birth place	Helsinki, Finland
instrument	Vocals, keyboards, piano, guitar, saxophone, harmonica, harp, drums, percussion
genre	Glam punk, rock, hard rock, glam rock, glam metal, punk rock
occupation	Musician, vocalist, songwriter
years active	1979–present
label	Johanna Kustannus, Lick Records, Nippon Phonogram, CBS, Major Leiden Productions, Backstage Alliance, Mercury Records, Yahoo! Records
associated acts	Hanoi Rocks, Demolition 23, Guns N' Roses, Jerusalem Slim
website	Official website
notable instruments	}}

Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm (born on 17 June 1962 in Helsinki), best known by his stage name, Michael Monroe, is a Finnish rock musician, and multi-instrumentalist who rose to fame as the vocalist for the glam punk band Hanoi Rocks, and has served as the frontman for all-star side projects, such as Demolition 23. and Jerusalem Slim (with Steve Stevens).

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Michael Monroe was born Matti "Makke" Fagerholm on 17 June 1962. His father, Pentti Fagerholm, is a very well known retired Finnish radio personality and reporter. Monroe states in the Hanoi Rocks autobiography ''All Those Wasted Years'' that one of the first times he was exposed to rock n' roll was when he saw Black Sabbath's 1970 Paris performance on television. Some other favourite bands of Monroe's at the time included: Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Little Richard. From 1976 to 1979, Monroe played in a band called Madness. During this time, while rehearsing in a basement of a church in Töölö, Monroe met guitarist Andy McCoy (then known as Antti Hulkko); McCoy's band, Briard, was also rehearsing there at the time.

Later, Monroe and McCoy played together for a short time in a band called Bolin. Monroe then went on to play saxophone in Maukka Perusjätkä's band, where he also met guitarist Nasty Suicide. Monroe auditioned as a bassist for Pelle Miljoona Oy but, even though the audition went well, they chose bassist Sami Yaffa.

Hanoi Rocks (1979–1985)[link]

Hanoi Rocks was a band that Monroe and his friend, guitarist Andy McCoy had thought of, but because McCoy was in the Finnish punk band Pelle Miljoona Oy, he told Monroe to start the band without him. From the very first Hanoi line-up only one member (besides Monroe) remained, rhythm guitarist Nasty Suicide, who would stay in the band until 1985. Andy McCoy left Pelle Miljoona Oy and joined Hanoi Rocks in 1980. McCoy also brought bassist Sam Yaffa with him. The band later recruited drummer Gyp Casino.

The band released their first album in 1981 titled ''Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks'', with most of the songs written by McCoy. The album was produced by Andy McCoy and Michael Monroe, who were known as "The Muddy Twins". In 1982 Hanoi Rocks moved to London and released their second studio album ''Oriental Beat'', which the band later dismissed as a failure, stating that the album was mixed badly by the producer Pete Woolcroft.

After the album's release, the band fired drummer Gyp Casino and hired Nicholas Dingley, better known as Razzle. This line-up, consisting of Michael Monroe, Andy McCoy, Nasty Suicide, Sam Yaffa and Razzle, has often been cited as the classic and definitive line-up. The band has said that Razzle revitalised them. Later that year, the band released ''Self Destruction Blues'', which had Razzle on the cover, but he didn't play on the album because it was actually a compilation of old singles. The tour for the album took the band to Asia for the first time.

The next year, 1983, the band released ''Back to Mystery City''. In 1984, the band got together with legendary producer Bob Ezrin and started work on their fifth studio album ''Two Steps from the Move'' which was their first recording deal to US markets. The original title of the album was "Silver Missiles and Nightingales", but this was changed before release. The album has been cited as one of the best glam rock albums, and Monroe has said that he "is very proud of it."

In 1984, Michael Monroe and Hanoi Rocks were among the most popular performers in the UK. The readers of the Sounds magazine voted Hanoi Rocks as the second best band in the world just after Marillion. The Hanoi Rocks single release "Underwater World" and the album "Two Steps from the Move" were voted as the fifth best single and album of the year. The televised concert which Hanoi Rocks recorded in England was voted as the second best concert video, and as stage performers, the group was voted #3. Michael Monroe was voted as "The Sex Symbol of the Year". Kerrang! magazine readers voted Hanoi Rocks as the ninth most important newcomer, and their album was chosen as the tenth best album of the year. The readers of Kerrang! also voted Michael Monroe the seventh sexiest performer in the music business.

While on their first large tour in the US, Monroe fractured his ankle, and some dates had to be pushed back. The band traveled to Los Angeles to spend some free time and to prepare for their two upcoming sold-out gigs. Some of the band members joined in with the members of Mötley Crue to have a party at the home of Mötley Crue singer Vince Neil while Monroe decided to stay in his hotel room and rest. During the party Razzle and Neil got into a car crash that resulted in Razzle losing his life.

After Razzle's death, the band performed in Helsinki, Finland, in a concert which was partly televised all over Europe as part of the 'Europa Go Go' project. The show had over 500 million viewers across Europe and it was the first public concert with their new drummer, Terry Chimes. It was also the last performance of Hanoi Rocks with Sam Yaffa who left the band due to personal differences with McCoy. The band tried to record some demos with the new members, Rene Berg and Terry Chimes, but according to Michael Monroe, things "didn't feel the same anymore", and the band disbanded after a short tour of Poland. One of the shows in Poland was recorded and later became the "Rock and Roll Divorce" album, released after the band had already split up.

Solo years and other projects (1985–2001)[link]

After Hanoi Rocks broke up in 1985, Monroe decided to start his solo career, but first he got to work with his good friend Stiv Bators. In the Fall of 1985, Bators and Monroe were asked by Steven Van Zandt to record backing vocals in London and then fly to New York to appear on his song "Sun City" and its music video. Both agreed and recorded backing vocals for the song, and both can be seen in the music video.

In December, 1985, Monroe announced that he would move to New York, and in 1986, Monroe founded his first solo band. In 1987, he released his first solo album, ''Nights Are So Long''. The album was a moderate hit, but it attracted big record labels: In 1988, Monroe signed to Mercury Records. In 1989, Monroe's second solo album was released, titled ''Not Fakin' It''. The album featured guest appearances by Monroe's friends and fellow musicians, including Steven Van Zandt, Ian Hunter and Nasty Suicide. The album reached number 161 on the US Billboard Charts, and was Monroe's first album to be distributed internationally. The album also got good reviews from critics, fans and fellow musicians alike. Music videos were shot for the singles "Dead, Jail or Rock 'N' Roll" and "Man With No Eyes". Axl Rose appeared in the music video for "Dead, Jail or Rock 'N' Roll". At that time, Michael Monroe hosted MTV's Headbangers Ball where he introduced the new music video to the world.

When ''Not Fakin' It'' was released, the Guns N' Roses record label, UZI Suicide, was re-releasing Hanoi Rocks albums in America. Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash also made a guest appearance on Monroe's Los Angeles shows in December, 1989, performing the song "Looking at You". Aerosmith's lead singer Steven Tyler had also taken notice of Monroe and asked him to perform with Aerosmith at Les Paul's 75th birthday at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York. Monroe played saxophone on the song "Big Ten Inch Record." He mostly spent the rest of 1989 and 1990 touring.

Monroe's solo career didn't prove to be as successful as he'd hoped, so in 1990 he decided to put together a new band. The band was called Jerusalem Slim, and was completed by former Billy Idol-guitarist Steve Stevens, Sami Yaffa, Greg Ellis and Ian McLagan.

In 1991, Monroe was asked by Guns N' Roses to appear on their ''Use Your Illusion I'' album, where he plays the harmonica and saxophone on the song "Bad Obsession". Monroe also later appeared on GNR's 1993 album, ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"'', where he sang on the cover of The Dead Boys' "Ain't It Fun". At the time, Monroe also joined Guns N' Roses on stage performing Honky Tonk Women together with the band members and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones.

Jerusalem Slim released an album titled ''Jerusalem Slim'' but broke up in 1992, due to Monroe and Stevens' musical disagreements. Next, Monroe tried to form another band called Demolition 23. with Yaffa, Jimmy Clark and ex Star Star Guitarist Jay Hening, who was eventually replaced by Nasty Suicide. Demolition 23. did release an album, titled ''Demolition 23.'' and they toured successfully, for example, in Japan and Europe, but the band broke up after Suicide announced that he would be retiring from the music business.

During the rest of the 1990s and the early 2000s, Monroe released four more solo albums before re-forming Hanoi Rocks with Andy McCoy.

Reformation of Hanoi Rocks (2002–2009)[link]

In 2002, McCoy and Monroe started working together again and decided to reform Hanoi Rocks with two new members on guitar and bass, and with Michael Monroe's solo career drummer, Lacu. Hanoi Rocks released ''Twelve Shots on the Rocks'' in 2003. In 2005 Hanoi Rocks released ''Another Hostile Takeover'' replacing the two former members with Andy Christell on bass and Conny Bloom on guitar (both formerly of the Electric Boys). In 2007 the band released the album ''Street Poetry''. In 2008 Andy McCoy and Michael Monroe stated that they had taken the band as far as they could, and so they decided to end the band. In April 2009, Hanoi Rocks played 8 sold out farewell gigs in 6 days at the Tavastia Club, in Helsinki. The band's original guitarist Nasty Suicide appeared as a special guest on 3 of the last gigs.

Michael Monroe's and Andy McCoys's book ''All Those Wasted Years'' was published later in 2009 in Finland, telling the story of Hanoi Rocks from the beginning to the end.

In June 2009, Monroe performed in Helsinki and in Tampere, on Sauna Open Air -festival with Duff McKagans Loaded band. On 3 July 2009, Monroe also performed in Finland, at the Ruisrock -festival with Ginger's band, The Wildhearts. At the end of July, Monroe also shared the stage for the first time in many years with Sam Yaffa when his band, the New York Dolls, were performing in Helsinki. After these performances with Yaffa and Ginger, Monroe and Yaffa started discussing the possibility of working together again. In December 2009, Monroe met Ginger again while he was playing in Alice Cooper's band. Monroe joined Alice Cooper on stage at Cooper's concert in Espoo, Finland, to play "School's Out". After the show, Ginger and Monroe discussed the possibilities of working together, and soon afterwards, Monroe, Ginger and Yaffa decided to line up a band together.

New band (2010–present)[link]

On 25 January 2010 Michael Monroe held a press conference in Los Angeles, where he unveiled his new band featuring Sam Yaffa in bass,guitarist Ginger from The Wildhearts, Todd Youth from Danzig and Samhain on a second guitar and Jimmy Clarke on drums. The press conference was hosted by Bam Margera of ''Jackass''. The Michael Monroe band started touring on 11 March at San Francisco’s Paradise Lounge and toured the US until the 21st of March. After some of the first shows Todd Youth and Jimmy Clark were replaced by guitarist Steve Conte of New York Dolls and drummer Karl Rosqvist.

During the summer of 2010 Michael Monroe band played a number of festival gigs all over the world, including Helsinki Live in Finland together with Guns N' Roses, the Sweden Rock Festival and the Download Festival in England. The band also performed at Ruisrock festival in Turku, Finland, where Slash was also performing. Monroe joined Slash on stage for a performance of "We're All Gonna Die" (from Slash's solo album) and "Up Around the Bend." At the Ankkarock festival in Finland, Steve Conte couldn't perform and he was replaced for this one show with the ex-Hanoi Rocks guitarist, Nasty Suicide. Since the early 1990s and the Demolition 23 tour this was the first time of these three members of the original Hanoi Rocks to perform on the stage together. Michael Monroe also performed on Summer Sonic festivals in Tokyo and Osaka, where Slash was also performing. The two got together again sharing a stage for a couple of songs. During the performance of the song "We're All Gonna Die" Monroe broke two of his ribs while hitting a metal barrel in front of the stage.

On 28 June 2010 it was announced that the Michael Monroe band would be supporting Motörhead on their 35th anniversary UK tour.

The first album of Michael Monroe's new band, the live album Another Night in the Sun was released in September 2010. The album was recorded at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki, Finland and mixed in Los Angeles by Niko Bolas whose credits include Neil Young, Frank Sinatra, Keith Richards, Kiss, Spinal Tap and more. The album was mastered by Grammy winner Richard Dodd, the man behind Tom Petty & Dixie Chicks.

In September, 2010 the band went into a studio to record their first studio album, ''Sensory Overdrive''. The album was recorded in Los Angeles and it was produced by legendary producer Jack Douglas (Aerosmith, John Lennon). The first single, "78", was released in January and the album is set for release on 14 March 2011. The band has also booked an extensive UK tour for April 2010, taking in venues in London, Brighton, Birmingham, Leeds and Exeter among others. In September 2010, Monroe also signed a recording deal with Spinefarm Records / Universal Music, which will distribute Monroe's upcoming albums.

On 9 November 2011, ''Sensory Overdrive'' won the "Album of the Year" award at the 2011 Classic Rock magazine awards.

Personal life[link]

Unlike other members of Hanoi Rocks' in the 1980s, Monroe was never a big drug user or a big drinker although in their book "All Those Wasted Years" Monroe tells about being addicted for a short while to Crack Heroin in the 1980s while living in London and to Amphetamine between 2000 and 2002 after his first wife, Jude Wilder died suddenly at their home in the city of Turku, Finland.

During his years in music business Michael Monroe has established a close friendship with many music business icons including late Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders - both Idols of Monroe -, Steven Van Zandt who produced Monroe's album with Demolition 23, Deborah Harry, Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan and Alice Cooper just to name a few.

Michael Monroe and Hanoi Rocks have influenced many rock'n'roll artists and bands: Slash had bought tickets to the soldout gigs of Los Angeles, which were canceled because of the death of Razzle. Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue and bands like Guns N' Roses have said in public that they were all inspired by Hanoi Rocks. In the Hanoi Rocks autobiography "All Those Wasted Years" Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett says "The Hollywood scene changed in just one night after people saw the pictures of Hanoi Rocks. After that everyone was wearing the same kind of hair, clothes and make up as Monroe". Michael Monroe and Hanoi Rocks have often been mentioned as the starters of the Hollywood's glam-rock scene, which was then adopted and developed by many 1980s glam-, punk-, and hard rock bands like Motley Crue, Jetboy, LA Guns and Poison.

Monroe met his first wife Jude Wilder in 1985 while she was working at CBS for Hanoi Rocks' ''Two Steps From The Move'' project. After they married the couple moved to Los Angeles and then to New York. Later on the couple moved to Turku, city in Finland, where Monroe relocated after many years in the United States. Wilder died of intracranial hemorrhage on 19 June 2001. Michael Monroe married his current wife, Johanna, on 3 July 2003.

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

''Nights Are So Long'' (1987)

''Not Fakin' It'' (1989)

''Peace of Mind'' (1996)

''Life Gets You Dirty'' (1999)

''Live - Abandin My Own Mind'' (2000)

''Take Them and Break Them'' (2002)

''Whatcha Want'' (2003)

''Another Night In the Sun: Live in Helsinki'' (live album) (2010)

''Sensory Overdrive'' (2011)

Hanoi Rocks albums[link]

''Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks'' (1981)

''Oriental Beat'' (1982)

''Self Destruction Blues'' (1982)

''Back to Mystery City'' (1983)

''All Those Wasted Years'' (Live) (1983)

''Two Steps from the Move'' (1984)

''Rock & Roll Divorce'' (Live) (1985)

''Twelve Shots on the Rocks'' (2002)

''Another Hostile Takeover'' (2005)

''Street Poetry'' (2007)

Jerusalem Slim albums[link]

''Jerusalem Slim'' (1992)

Demolition 23. albums[link]

''Demolition 23.'' (1994)

Guest appearances[link]

Artists United Against Apartheid: ''Sun City'' (1985)

Guns N' Roses: ''Use Your Illusion I'' (1991)

Guns N' Roses: ''"The Spaghetti Incident?"'' (1993)

Various artists: ''Coneheads: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack'' (1993)

White Flames: ''Swimsuit Issue Centerfold'' (single) (2007)

Literature - books about Michael Monroe [link]

Michael Monroe [Hardcover], Ari Väntänen and Michael Monroe (2011)

All Those Wasted Years [Hardcover], Ari Väntänen, Andy McCoy and Michael Monroe (2010)

Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks [Hardcover], Andy McCoy (English edition 2010)

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited. Macdonald, Bruno; Harrington, Jim, Dimery, Robert. ed. (2006)

Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. HarperCollins. Christe, Ian (2003)

Boulevard of Broken Dreams [Hardcover], 1987

References[link]

External links [link]

Official website (in English)

IMDB Biography (official marital status)

Interview

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:Finnish heavy metal singers Category:Finnish saxophonists Category:People from Helsinki Category:Hanoi Rocks members

de:Michael Monroe es:Michael Monroe fr:Michael Monroe it:Michael Monroe ja:マイケル・モンロー fi:Michael Monroe sv:Michael Monroe

Carl Hunter (born 22 April 1965, Liverpool, England) was the English bassist in the Liverpool-based pop group The Farm.

He was part of the second wave of members who joined in 1983, and apart from his musical contributions, he also helped to design their CD jackets and sleeves. Hunter has released a feature film on DVD as a producer and co-writer of the movie, ''Grow Your Own''. He has also directed short films and documentaries for television and film festivals. He currently teaches media at Ormskirk's Edge Hill University.

He has set up a film production company with friend and co-worker Frank Cottrell Boyce (writer of ''Millions'' and ''24 Hour Party People'') named Northern Soul Productions.

David Jewell (The Hay's Office) also bought his first bass guitar from Hunter whilst at Southport Art College in 1985.

References[link]

Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:The Farm members Category:English rock bass guitarists Category:Musicians from Liverpool