BOOK: At Home-Alice Neel in the Queer World, David Zwirner Books

Alice Neel’s unstinting, visionary engagement with the lives of those around her resulted in an inclusive oeuvre. This aspect of queer representation in her work is explored for the first time in this new catalogue. The catalogue “At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World” highlights the artist’s vibrant involvement with the human condition. Within a lifetime of work, Neel painted many people from many walks of life—this catalogue is the first to focus on queer communities, those who were part of their circle, as well as allies and others with whom the artist was in broader conversation—together forming a collective portrait that both embodies and complicates an understanding of the queer world of Neel’s moment and the artist’s place within it. This collection of paintings includes rarely seen works depicting individuals including Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, and Adrienne Rich, as well as writers, artists, friends, and advocates. This book includes not just portraits of gay people but those of theorists, activists, politicians, and so on who would qualify as queer by virtue of their different take in their given field and thus the world. So doing, they reflect Alice’s own interest in and commitment to difference. -Efi Michalarou