Art Monsters

Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art

Author: Lauren Elkin

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Description

A landmark feminist intervention- a dazzlingly original reassessment of women's stories, bodies and art - and how we think about them.'Destined to become a new classic' Chris KrausA dazzlingly original reassessment of women's stories, bodies and art - and how we think about them.For decades, feminist artists have confronted the problem of how to tell the truth about their experiences as bodies. Queer bodies, sick bodies, racialised bodies, female bodies, what is their language, what are the materials we need to transcribe it?Exploring the ways in which feminist artists have taken up this challenge, Art Monsters is a landmark intervention in how we think about art and the body. Weaving daring links between disparate artists and writers - from Julia Margaret Cameron's photography to Kara Walker's silhouettes, Vanessa Bell's portraits to Eva Hesse's rope sculptures - Lauren Elkin shows that their work offers a potent celebration of beauty and excess, sentiment and touch, the personal and the political.'The Susan Sontag of her generation' Deborah Levy

Critic Reviews

'Destined to become a new classic' Chris Kraus
'Juxtaposes ideas, images, language, in a vivid collage that invites us to look more deeply' Jeanette Winterson
'Soaring and vivid ... it left me giddy with possibility' Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
'A fascinating re-visioning and re-imagining of women artists who have used their bodies in all sorts of creative, subversive ways.' Juliet Jacques
'You won't find anything like this history, told in this way, anywhere else' Lubaina Himid
'Lauren Elkin's exhaustive, incisive re-readings of feminist writing and art across several centuries prove that the questions raised in these works are far from resolved. In fact, they're more timely than ever. The book seems destined to become a new classic. Making a passionate case for the monstrosity entailed in all acts of creation, Elkin shatters the truisms that have evolved around feminist thought.' Chris Kraus
'Soaring and vivid, the experience of reading Art Monsters is like watching a lightning storm at night, each chapter a bolt of light. A remarkable twinning of intellect and brightest scholarship, it left me giddy with possibility.' Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
'Lauren Elkin has the nerve to defend the guilty, fight tooth and claw for long abandoned causes while making heroines out of trouble makers. Her book makes you take sides, change sides, change back and sometimes shout out loud with furious indignation but you won't find anything like this history, told in this way, anywhere else.' Lubaina Himid
'Elkin's authority as a cultural critic springs from her signature style of curious questioning. Rather than imposing her conclusions on the reader, she juxtaposes ideas, images, language, in a vivid collage that invites us to look more deeply. Never linear - because life isn't - but perpetually moving, in both senses of the word.' Jeanette Winterson
'A fascinating re-visioning and re-imagining of women artists who have used their bodies in all sorts of creative, subversive ways. Lauren Elkin provides fresh insight into more familiar names and works, and brings plenty of less well-known ones to light, taking us through more than a century of women who boldly took on the world.' Juliet Jacques

About the Author

Lauren Elkin is the author of several books, including Fl neuse- Women Walk the City, a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, and a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel award for the art of the essay. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. She is also an award-winning translator, most recently of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel The Inseparables. After twenty years in Paris, she now lives in London.