O
Contributor
Olivia Laing

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

BY Olivia Laing | 25 APR 19

For Benjamin Britten, Wolfgang Tillmans and Virginia Woolf, something grows when civilization fails

BY Olivia Laing | 25 FEB 19

A new exhibition in London shows the late painter as a master of colour – even after losing his eyesight

BY Olivia Laing | 21 FEB 19

‘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’

BY Olivia Laing | 23 JAN 19

There’s a difference between respecting people’s right to tell their own stories and refusing to look at all

BY Olivia Laing | 10 OCT 18

The frieze columnist's first novel is an homage to, and embodiment of, the late, great Kathy Acker

BY Olivia Laing | 22 JUN 18

Derek Jarman, circular time and seed catalogues: Olivia Laing takes the long view

BY Olivia Laing | 20 APR 18

The intertwined imaginations of Anthony Powell and Nicolas Poussin

BY Olivia Laing | 09 FEB 18

Philip Guston's 'Klan' paintings are more relevant than ever

BY Olivia Laing | 15 OCT 17

As morbid devotional objects go on show at Frieze Masters, one writer asks: why do we look at violent religious art?

BY Olivia Laing | 25 SEP 17

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? 

BY Olivia Laing | 29 AUG 17

Conspiracy theories and reparative reading

BY Olivia Laing | 23 APR 17

Olivia Laing uses dance to prove the existence of tenderness, solidarity and personal freedom

BY Olivia Laing | 10 FEB 17

What's so great about authenticity?

BY Olivia Laing | 17 OCT 16

Trying to make sense of it all

BY Olivia Laing | 14 AUG 16

The intertwining of life and death in poetry, art and nature

BY Olivia Laing | 07 MAY 16

Olivia Laing, a judge of this year’s Frieze Writer’s Prize, explains how she became a writer

BY Olivia Laing | 04 APR 16

The enduring symbolism of a sewn mouth, from the works of David Wojnarowicz to recent protests by refugees

BY Olivia Laing | 13 FEB 16