Olivia Laing is a writer and critic. Her latest book The Garden Against Time: In Search of the Common Paradise will be published in May 2024.
From Mx Justin Vivian Bond to Andy Warhol: fan artists in New York
For Benjamin Britten, Wolfgang Tillmans and Virginia Woolf, something grows when civilization fails
A new exhibition in London shows the late painter as a master of colour – even after losing his eyesight
‘He wasn’t English, but he was playing an English game, the fag in the Establishment, a light entertainer, undisguised yet somehow unseen, an open secret’
There’s a difference between respecting people’s right to tell their own stories and refusing to look at all
Indecency surrounds us, we must not look away
The frieze columnist's first novel is an homage to, and embodiment of, the late, great Kathy Acker
Derek Jarman, circular time and seed catalogues: Olivia Laing takes the long view
The intertwined imaginations of Anthony Powell and Nicolas Poussin
Philip Guston's 'Klan' paintings are more relevant than ever
As morbid devotional objects go on show at Frieze Masters, one writer asks: why do we look at violent religious art?
Reflections, a favourite verse, and a new poem dedicated to one of the English language’s most renowned poets of the past century
How can art and literature respond to disaster?
Conspiracy theories and reparative reading
Olivia Laing uses dance to prove the existence of tenderness, solidarity and personal freedom
What's so great about authenticity?
Trying to make sense of it all
The intertwining of life and death in poetry, art and nature
Olivia Laing, a judge of this year’s Frieze Writer’s Prize, explains how she became a writer
The enduring symbolism of a sewn mouth, from the works of David Wojnarowicz to recent protests by refugees