Brian Dillon

Brian Dillon · At Tate Modern: ‘Leigh Bowery!’ For a while, Leigh Bowery touted himself as a legitimate if outré fashion designer, but it’s clear from the Tate show...

‘Leigh Bowery once planned to walk up to the bar at Taboo with an axe and chop off his own hand, but he chickened out.’

@briangdillon.bsky.social on the performance artist and London nightclub impresario, on show at Tate Modern until Sunday: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

An excellent thread by @larapawson.bsky.social about this "overlooked men" dimwittery. Interesting that the Guardian piece about Conduit Books is backed up with old quotes from Murdoch editors/reviewers.

Séamas O'Reilly: Trans people have spent a decade being attacked in a moral panic The poor provision of unisex children’s facilities— which reinforces gender stereotypes and inconveniences women and men both — was, incidentally, an issue I remember being quite talked-about a decade...

The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

A little piece about bringing Fallow into the world of print, in the Irish Times today.

Residential Writing Course: The Essay | One form, infinite possibilities | Arvon What constitutes an essay, and why write one? Are there limits to what this ancient form can do, where it can go, or what it might contain? How do we know when an essay is done and how we might go abo...

This May, spend a week in Devon exploring essays—a form with limitless possibilities. Tutored by prizewinning journalist, essayist and non-fiction writer @chitgrrl.bsky.social, writer and publisher Will Rees, plus special guest @briangdillon.bsky.social. More info: www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

Aside from the fact that it's a very cool gold-topped cane, what a demented thing to write. Are they waiting for some smirking bearded (white) bro-infant in a too-tight suit to show them the way?

It's a fascinating book – hope it gets plenty more attention.

A copy of "Bye Bye I Love You" by Michael Erard standing on a table.

"A well-meaning focus on last words may miss a person’s last efforts at communication and connection. So too, perhaps unexpectedly, the words of the very young."

@briangdillon.bsky.social reviews "Bye Bye I Love You" for 4Columns: https://4columns.org/dillon-brian/bye-bye-i-love-you

Pincher, Bone and Blunt!

Lavinia Greenlaw · Short Cuts: On Marianne Faithfull By the end of 1979, hesitation had given way to dread. We fully expected to be facing the end of the world. Margaret...

‘The best songs on 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 are the ones she co-wrote. The original mix was less spacious, more of itself, less of the time and more of her times.’

Lavinia Greenlaw on Marianne Faithfull: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

They’ve DerryLondonDerried the Gulf of Mexico

David Johansen, the last of the New York Dolls, has stage four cancer and a broken back, but lives in a country where even a wildly famous musician and actor cannot afford healthcare. You can help him and his family here. www.sweetrelief.org/davidjohanse...

Book Review: ‘Live Fast,’ by Brigitte Giraud In the 2022 Prix Goncourt-winning novel “Live Fast,” Brigitte Giraud pieces together the motorcycle crash that killed the narrator’s husband, while tearing her apart.

For @nytimes.com I reviewed LIVE FAST, by Brigitte Giraud; translated by Cory Stockwell. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/b...

YouTube video by Marianne Faithfull Marianne Faithfull - Broken English (Short Film by Derek Jarman) [1979]

RIP Marianne Faithfull. youtu.be/f2tbc81Ujno?...

The Dublin Review number ninety-seven | WINTER 2024-25 features work by Brian Davey, Karen O’Reilly, Eimear Ryan, Susannah Dickey, Aisling Flynn, Juliana Adelman, and Arnold Thomas Fanning. To buy or subscribe visit thedublinreview.com/product/subscription/

Brian Dillon · At the Whitechapel: On Peter Kennard Can the art of political photomontage continue to function as print declines and memes both crude and ingenious...

‘Bristling missiles are one of Kennard’s motifs; variously resembling a nest of knives or sprouting crystals, the warheads protrude from a gas mask worn by the Earth or lurk inside the half-opened dome of a nuclear reactor.’

@briangdillon.bsky.social on Peter Kennard:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Brian Dillon · At the Whitechapel: On Peter Kennard Can the art of political photomontage continue to function as print declines and memes both crude and ingenious...

I wrote about the art of Peter Kennard for the new issue of the @londonreview.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Hello Bluesky!

Please enjoy D. Graham Burnett’s essay for issue 60, “Notes Toward a History of Skywriting,” featuring this lovely image by Robert Hill, unlocked for a limited time.

www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/60/bu...

Glad you liked it!

This such a beautifully tender piece

You Can’t Go Wrong With Delia Brian Dillon on Christmas with Delia. Illustration by Seb Tanti Burlò.

When @rebeccamayjohnson.bsky.social asked me to write about Christmas with Delia for @vittles.bsky.social, thoughts also turned inevitably to Christmases past. What does Delia provide, alongside all the failsafe recipes? Absolution from Christmas melancholy! www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/you-cant-g...

What Remains

On the poetry of Hannah Arendt, for 4Columns. 4columns.org/dillon-brian...

Yes, I've seen this! Pity she isn't more present in this conversation.

If you've not read Tim Robinson, you might like to do so: he was a writer of genius and a kind and generous man. (And also made beautiful maps.)

🐞This week’s podcast: Hannah Regel & Emily LaBarge discuss Regel's first novel THE LAST SANE WOMAN

You can listen here: lrb.me/013

As I say, it's been a long time (late 80s probably), but I think I admired the snark, just not what it was in service of. Likewise "Radical Chic".

It's a long, long time since I read The Painted Word or any of his art writings, but almost certainly yes.

Is contemporary art a lot of pious wokery? Let's ask a minor art critic but notable right-wing troll.

Whenever I see a writer (usually American?) disparage the semicolon, it makes me want to revive all manner of stately but unruly punctuation;—the Ruskinian semicolon-and-dash; Woolf's semicolons instead of commas for dependent clauses, &c.