David Halle's researches earned him a licence amateur voyeurs would kill for. He got to nose about, more or less at will, in other people's rooms. His study of the landscapes, portraits, snapshots, saints, masks and so forth which a representative group of Americans, in and near New York, have on their walls and shelves, of how they display them and what they say about them, required that he get to know more than a hundred and sixty different houses. The aim was to test and develop theories about art and class. His book provides, incidentally, much information about how American houses are used and what the art they contain signifies. When curiosity about this kind of thing feeds through to television shows investigating the lifestyles of the rich and famous it makes mass entertainment. In magazines and books, pictures of rooms seed fantasies about perfect lives lived in country cottages, or exciting ones lived in New York lofts. But most people feel happier looking around strangers' houses than having strangers look around theirs. What persuaded residents to co-operate with Halle?

LRB 7 April 1994 | PDF Download