Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency [B2132]

2021 PB in nice clean condition. "One of the finest writers of the new nonfiction" (Harper's Bazaar) explores the role of art in our tumultuous modern era. In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, examining their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O'Keeffe, reads Maggie Nelson and Sally Rooney, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, she celebrates art as a force of resistance and repair, an antidote to a frightening political time. We're often told that art can't change anything. Laing argues that it can. Art changes how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Really happy to have discovered Olivia Laing. Her writing is wonderful and really does the work of giving you hope. The first part "Artists Lives" for me is the most fantastic one, and I wish sometimes there were more long pieces in the book. I feel like sometimes I just get a scent of something that leaves me wanting more. Also, would love to see an edition with some prints of paintings, photos, etc. But I guess the lesson in this book is - take it as it is, and it's definitely wonderful."; "Great overview of key modern artists!"; "I really loved this. It introduced me to so many new artists and writers that I otherwise wouldn't have known about."; "I did really enjoy this and would recommend; full of some beautiful essays but also insights into artists I was unfamiliar with and enjoyed learning about. I was very moved by a lot of the essays."