Tiki Modern by Sven A Kirsten Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tiki Modern
Book Review: Tiki Bible #2
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is large, this book is loaded, and this book is awesome! It is a steal at this price and it is loaded with TONS of cool retro color tiki pics. Also, did I mention there is some nude (topless) vintage tiki PIN-UP babes in this book too? It is perfect for lonely Friday nights in your tiki bar bachelor pad. Oops, did I just say that? Anyways, what more could you possibly want from a tiki book! I can't say enough good things about this book other than it must have been a true labor of love by the author and I wish there were more books out there like this one! Anyone that would criticize or knock a book like this is either not into tiki, has their nose out of joint because they too are "another-modern-tiki-artist-come-lately" with an over inflated sense of importance and ego, and were not mentioned in this book, or they have had one too many Mai-Tai's with their crack cocaine and have fried their brain. This book is a freakin' tiki bible man, pure and simple.Book Review: Tiki Modern
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is excellent. We bought two copies one to read over and over and one to save in perfect condition. The author once again (He wrote the Book of Tiki) has captured the history of Witco and tiki and presents it in an entertaining and visually apealing manner. As tiki collectors and myself a tiki artist we thank Mr. Kirsten for producing another classic for all to enjoy.Book Review: Tiki Modern
Summary: 5 Stars
I haven't seen a more engaging and easy to read book on Tiki than 'Tiki Modern'. It is full of vintage photographs that help readers integate the worlds of modern and primitive art. This book leaves you wanting more on the subject of Tiki while wondering "Where can I get a piece of Tiki to add to my home or personal art collection?"Book Review: Tiki Modern & the height of American influence
Summary: 5 Stars
While its predecessor volume, The Book of Tiki, is a straight-forward exploration of the Polynesian popular culture that came to fruition in early 1960's America, Sven Kirsten's Tiki Modern... and the Wild World of Witco is a more ambitious attempt to place this peculiar phenomena in the larger social, artistic and intellectual context of the time period, primarily as exemplified in the three-dimensional art and furnishings of William Westenhaver.
Both volumes offer an incredible wealth of playful imagery depicting all of the various idioms in which the concept of "tiki" found (and continues to find) expression. This makes Tiki Modern an entirely essential Volume 2 in Kirsten's ongoing attempt to catalog the genre for the growing number of tiki devotees worldwide.
For the intellectually curious, however, Tiki Modern is more than an extrapolation on the first book's suburban tiki archeology. It is an entirely sober effort to explain how a passing suburban infatuation can be understood as a metaphor for America's conflicted psychological condition at what could now be called the apex of her global cultural influence and power.
The World of Witco- a Westenhaver-sculpted map of the world - as depicted on the inside covers of Tiki Modern is the perfect expression of what Kirsten has tried to achieve with this book. On one level Tiki Modern and Westenhaver's map convey the limitless scope and raw energy of space-age primitivism, but on a deeper level they illuminate America's emergence from an inward-looking, pre-war isolationism to a self-conscious and over-sized sense of itself as a global superpower.
A careful reader will linger over the text in Tiki Modern as well as the well-cataloged art and be inspired not only to appreciate and perhaps collect Witco furniture, scupture and paintings, but to seek out and understand how North American society interpreted itself during a period in which the wealth and idealism of the New World pushed the boundaries of technology, art, fashion, architecture and music into realms both sublime and grotesque.
If one looks carefully, the seeds of America's eventual failure to fulfill its imagined destiny as a unifier of peoples and cultures can be glimpsed in the pages of Tiki Modern and within the wild world of Witco. The photograph on page 15 depicting TV host Steve Allen astride a New-Guinea-style crocodile is perhaps the best expression of this quixotic optimism. For those more tactile, I'm certain Kirsten would suggest taking a seat at one of Westenhaver's exotic bars, or perhaps lounging on a dragon sofa.
Book Review: Tiki fanatics essential
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an essential addition to your library if you have any interest in Tiki. It is also an insightful look at the social phenomenon that initiated the Tiki craze.