“Funny Weather is populated by artists who move and excite me, who look with sharp eyes at the societies they inhabit but who also propose new ways of seeing,” writes Olivia Laing in the foreword to this collection of essays, letters, interviews, and criticism that meditates on the work of artists and writers such as John Ashbery, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Chris Kraus, Deborah Levy, Hilary Mantel, Maggie Nelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Sally Rooney, and David Wojnarowicz. Laing provides an inspiring perspective of the significance of creative work: as a tool for resistance and reparation. “What drives all these essays is a long-standing interest in how a person can be free, and especially in how to find a freedom that is shareable, and not dependent on the oppression or exclusion of other people.”
