Patricia Goldstone

“The first biography to explore the life and suspicious death of . . . a controversial artist whose drawings walked the line between art and information.” —WhoWhatWhy
 
In the fateful month of March 2000, shortly after opening a hugely successful show in New York that unveiled the more nefarious financial connections of presidential candidate George W. Bush, the hugely ambitious conceptual artist Mark Lombardi was found hanged in his studio, an apparent suicide. With museums lining up to buy his work, and the fame he had sought relentlessly at last within his reach, speculation about whether his death was suicide or murder has titillated the art world ever since.
 
Lombardi’s spidery, elusive diagrams describing the evolution of the shadow-banking industry from decades-old alliances between intelligence agencies, banking, government, and organized crime may have made him unique in art history as the only artist whose primary subject, the CIA, has turned around and studied him and his art work. Exhaustively researched, this is the first comprehensive biography of this immensely contradictory and brilliantly original artist whose pervasive influence in not only the art world, but also in the world of computer science and cybersecurity is only now coming to light.
 
“The first major book about the artist.” —Newsweek
 
“Goldstone has impressively mined the artist’s archives and interviewed many who knew him, dutifully recording all their contradictory gossip.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“The first comprehensive biography of the conceptual artist . . . Goldstone weaves US historical records into the course of the artist’s life, citing scandals, political intrigue, and economic turbulence along the way.” —Artnet