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Lauren Elkin
Lauren Elkin is most recently the author of No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel, The Inseparables (Vintage). Her previous book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City (Chatto/FSG) was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Her essays have appeared in Granta, the London Review of Books, Harper’s, the New York Times, and Frieze, among others. Her next book, Art Monsters, will be out in July 2023 (Chatto/FSG). She lives in London.

Articles Available Online


Maria Gainza’s ‘Optic Nerve’

Book Review

May 2019

Lauren Elkin

Book Review

May 2019

In his foreword to A Thousand Plateaus, on the pleasures of philosophy, and of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy in particular, Brian Massumi writes:  ...

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Issue No. 8

Barking From the Margins: On écriture féminine

Lauren Elkin

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Issue No. 8

 I. Two moments in May May 2, 2011. The novelists Siri Hustvedt and Céline Curiol are giving a talk...

When I first visited Caragh Thuring in her east London studio, there was an old man lurking in the corner He was bearded and curly haired, with orange cheeks, peppery eyes and bright lips that were puckered into a small red beak He looked surprised, maybe a little embarrassed and, although this won’t mean much to you, a little like my dad, which is how Thuring and I continue to refer to him ‘I couldn’t tell you where he came from’, she said, looking over his fading features (which I should mention were rendered once on linen, and again to the left on a dog-eared piece of paper) ‘I was going to stick him on top of another painting, but I thought that would be a bit much, so I’m saving him for later’   This approach is indicative of Thuring’s painterly methodology, one characterised by reclamation and continuation A healthy disposophobic, Thuring hoards imagery and ideas from all walks of life, and then rolls them out slowly, revisiting certain particularities from linen to linen Her latest works, on display across Thomas Dane’s twin London spaces until January, are informed by Ardyne Point, a now-derelict development to the southwest of Dunoon in Scotland which, framed by towering oil rigs, once sought permission to manage the nuclear waste from decommissioned submarines (the application was withdrawn following protests from local residents) Contrastingly, her exhibition at London’s Chisenhale Gallery last year involved a number of serene works inspired by the ‘picture windows’ of Dutch suburban homes, their white ledges interrupted by smatterings of leaves and spotty ornamental vases   In spite of their seemingly unrelated starting points – from the residential to the rigs – the two bodies of work remain visually linked Brickwork, for instance, a leitmotif that Thuring adopted shortly after leaving college in 1995 as a ‘shortcut’ to signify construction, lurks in the background of both – previously, these bricks have been painted, now they are woven into the very fabric onto which the paintings are built Silhouettes of figures, too, fade in and out, as do man-made structures, graphic patterns, and expanses of untouched

Contributor

August 2014

Lauren Elkin

Contributor

August 2014

Lauren Elkin is most recently the author of No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK...

The End of Francophonie: The Politics of French Literature

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Issue No. 2

Lauren Elkin

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Issue No. 2

I. We were a couple of minutes late for the panel we’d hoped to attend. The doors were closed and there was a surly-looking...

READ NEXT

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July 2013

The New Writing

César Aira

TR. Rahul Bery

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July 2013

The way I see it, the avant-garde emerged at a point when the professionalisation of artists had consumed itself...

Interview

October 2015

Interview with Valeria Luiselli

Stephen Sparks

Interview

October 2015

Valeria Luiselli’s second novel, The Story of My Teeth, was commissioned by two curators for an exhibition at Galeria...

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Issue No. 17

Editorial

The Editors

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Issue No. 17

An Englishman, a Frenchman and an Irishman set up a magazine in London in 2010. This sounds like the...

 

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