Written By: Chiara Atoyebi
Photo Courtesy of Lucy R. Lippard
As we journey through life, there comes a time when we must give an account of our experiences. We all encounter the moment where we reflect on our contributions shared and created. For artists, the ability to create is an essential part of life–one that is best shared through the lens of their “stuff.” Artist, writer, activist, and curator, Lucy R. Lippard’s latest work, “Stuff instead of a Memoir,” published by NYU Press, explores the storied 86-year-old’s life in cinematic detail keeping her readers engaged from cover to cover.
This short, extensively illustrated memoir is filled with anecdotes describing tchotchkes, photographs, and art in her unpretentious New Mexico home. It is there, where the author narrates the key events and relationships in her life.
Lippard opens her memoir waxing somewhat philosophical, “I’ve had a very lucky life, beginning with loving and supportive parents and charging along with a lot of good friends and lovers. Telling a personal story at this age is challenging. Life changes as you live it, and remembering it accurately is far more impossible than we might think. I’ve heard that the more you remember, the more inaccurate the memories are likely to be. What about all those people and parts of my life, even currently, that are no longer represented by objects?“
At the age of seventeen, Lippard, who had a lifelong love of both writing and painting, wrote a letter to her twenty two year old self. She writes, ” My seventeen-year-old self wrote her expectations to her twenty-two-year-old self, who had met most of the criteria. “Hi ya, Hon!… Out of Smith College (did you get booted or graduate?) and, I hope, off doing all the things you’ve always wanted to do…” [I expected to have] “ gotten something published by now. I’ll never forgive you if you’ve given up writing and painting by this time!” [I had given up painting and hadn’t yet published anything beyond college.] “I hope you’re still an individualist and love to argue and haven’t gotten overly gushy or religious…. I hope it’s still peacetime and that you aren’t married or thinking of it yet. Remember, you were going to wait and live a little, experience some of the realities of life, and only then be ready to settle down….”
The author writes candidly about her colorful family and I can see where she gets her wonderful joie de vivre! These enriching stories are filled with familiar names and places within New York City, but also within the women’s art movement, and are told in a way that brings life to each person–which is difficult to do.
Lippard is a fantastic storyteller. She generously shares her life experiences, from her youth to her thirty-five years spent in New York City, with plenty of humor and anecdotal memories. You’ll also get a glimpse into her recent years, as she explores the art, landscape, culture, and communities of the American Southwest after relocating in the early 1990s. Trust me, you won’t be able to put this book down.
Lucy R. Lippard is a well-known contemporary art historian, curator, writer, and activist who has contributed significantly to the field of art history. Lippard gained widespread recognition for her groundbreaking study of conceptual art in the book Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. Her insightful analysis of the evolution of art during this period has been highly influential in shaping the discourse surrounding conceptual art. Additionally, Lippard is well-regarded for her writing on feminist art and politically engaged art, which has been instrumental in raising awareness of the role of art in social and political change. She has published more than twenty books, organized some fifty exhibitions, authored numerous articles, and co-founded Heresies: A Journal of Art and Politics, as well as the artist’s-book center, Printed Matter. She has helped form numerous political and cultural groups, including the Ad Hoc Women’s Art Committee and the Art Workers Coalition. Lippard also played a key role in the development of Conceptual Art in New York in the 1960s and 1970s and the Feminist Art movement. In more recent years she has focused her work on the landscape, culture, and art of the American Southwest, where she moved in the 1990s. Her many honors include the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.
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