Olivia Laing

In the age of Trump and Brexit, every crisis is instantly overridden by the next. The turbulent political weather of the twenty- first century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Olivia Laing makes a brilliant, inspiring case for why art matters more than ever, as a force of both resistance and repair. Art, she argues, changes how we see the world. It gives us X-ray vision. It reveals inequalities and offers fertile new ways of living. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, and their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O'Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Wolfgang Tillmans, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, Funny Weather celebrates art as an antidote to a terrifying political moment.

Art in an Emergency

Funny Weather

Maria Buitrago

My own understanding of loneliness relied on a belief in solid, separate selves that he saw as hopelessly out- moded. In his world view, everyone was perpetually slipping into each other, passing through perpetual cycles of transformation; no longer separate, but interspersed. Perhaps he was right. We aren’t as solid as we once thought. We’re embodied but we’re also networks, expanding out into empty space, living on inside machines and in other people’s heads, memories and data streams as well as flesh. We're being watched and we do not have control. We long for contact and it makes us afraid. But as long as we're still capable of feeling and expressing vulnerability, intimacy stands a chance.

'The book to help you make sense of the world' Stylist 'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art’ Telegraph 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 its role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keefe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, 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 art can’t change anything. Laing argues that it can. It changes how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living. ‘A warm, thinking, enticing sweep of a book, like spending the afternoon with your brainiest friend.’ – Kate Mosse, author of The Burning Chambers.

Mari-Claire Parrin

Tbh, I'm not the type to read biographies. I never really cared about any famous people so much that I'm intrigued to learn about their whole life and what makes them. I've picked 2 memoirs so far and I did love them. But in general, I imagined biography to be something so personal and intimate it's burdensome. That's why I thought I need to care about the person first to get any value from that information. But reading this book, I learned that that's not the case. Famous people are people before they're famous (but of course?? Maybe it's just me who puts a weird sentiment and antipathy to fame. Well bye to that Q. New minute new me). So to say, this book taught me that a biography is just a book about people, how they respond to situations, and what they have to say in hindsight. It's a learning opportunity as although we're all living for the first time, we're not the first ones to live. It's a charming genre, really, apparently, baru tau. Anw, for ones with an attention span of a goldfish (me), short biographies with a curated time window really shine for that purpose. The lives Laing gathered here are of artists and writers and it's very interesting to see how art and stories were born upon different stimuli and crises. We'd see different backgrounds and issues discussed here too; HIV/AIDS, sexuality, feminism, etc. Laing didn't go so deep on them, but quite enough for the context. 

The chapter on Chantal Joffe was super special for me. There, they talked as Joffe painted Laing's portrait. A portrait is "a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.", google said. Incidentally, I'm also currently reading a book about a portrait painter (Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore) and I got to learn that it's not just that. A portrait can capture one's energy captured even without featuring a face or even any human-like figure at all. If it is so, then it doesn't even have to be a painting at all! A portrait can be a snap of who you are in the purest sense, whatever means used to catch it. It can be a.. biography. As such, the frame of them sitting together there was a striking parallel. They were doing different activities, but they were painting each other's portraits. 

On another note, Laing writing the biography live through an ongoing interview like that was somehow so sweet and romantic for me. They're not connected romantically in any way, but it's such a loving gesture in my eyes, removing the self from the picture and pouring the words, adjusting the angle solely to see and paint the other person clearly. It's a love language discovery for me. I think I'd love to write someone a biography for how much I admire and cherish their person. 

Anyway, this is my first audiobook! This kind of genre is a good introduction to audiobooks, I think. I don't worry much about having my focus interrupted because there's no flow to immerse into, unlike fiction, and there's no difficult concept to spend brainpower and full concentration on, unlike heavier non-fiction. It's a good book to narrate on too. Laing's tone is rather conversational, and the narrator, Sophie Aldred, did a very good job of sounding the sentence dynamics soothingly. Even the mere auditory experience was pleasant. Suka!

Emma Bose

Funny Weather is an incisive compilation of essays that probe the possibilities of art - from Basquiat’s brushstrokes to Bowie’s genre-bending dimensionality. 

“We're so often told that art can't really change anything. But I think it can. It shapes our ethical landscapes; it opens us to the interior lives of others. It is a training ground for possibility. It makes plain inequalities, and it offers other ways of living. Don't you want it, to be impregnate with all that light? And what will happen if you are?”

There were some good essays but the audio narrators bad accents ruined quite a few. 

Imie Kent-Muller

Nicholas Christowitz

I tried to read this book as slow as I possibly could but alas, it came to an end and I'm as sad as I thought I'd be. Olivia Laing is an exceptional writer with such rich and nuanced stories to tell.

Funny Weather Art in an Emergency

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