19/07/2026
I’m nearly at the end of listening to an audio version of Olivia Laing’s 2016 powerful book called THE LONELY CITY: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone.
This recent recording is read by Tilda Swinton making it wonderful to engage with, reflects on a time when Laing lived in NYC in circumstances not of her choosing. She wrote as a memoir with a lot of reflection on her situation there, but intertwined with fascinating research and observations on artists that lived with chronic loneliness.
I was familiar with the work all of these artists except one, Josh Harris.
Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol,
David Wojnarowicz, Henry Darger, Vivian Maier, Klaus Nomi, Zoe Leonard all made work that I have enjoyed or connected with over time. Some joyful, some incredibly moving, some inspiring but always with some awareness of a particular feeling about them which I recognise as sadness. Sometimes a sadness for them and sometimes a sense sadness in their work.
I realisethat I glimpsed their loneliness and am grateful for whatever their circumstances, they had the ability to share their work with us, ultimately their way of survival.
This exhibition ARE YOU LONELY TONIGHT? I’M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY speaks to this theme. Though we may not have taken those words in that sense when sung by Elvis Presley, the exhibition dips into various interpretations of loneliness though is light and bright enough to walk away with a sense of positive energy.
Showing now at ACCA until August 30.
