Description
A visionary life at the intersection of art, technology, and feminism.
In Private I, Lynn Hershman Leeson-one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time-shares her personal journey and the struggle for her visionary work to be recognized as art. In the 1970s, women artists were often dismissed unless linked to more successful male counterparts. Defying this marginalization, Hershman Leeson carved her own path, creating groundbreaking conceptual works such as her Roberta Breitmore series, the Video Diaries, and films starring Tilda Swinton, including Conceiving Ada and Teknolust. Her innovative installations took place in unconventional venues-hotels, department store windows, San Quentin State Prison, and housing projects-while she raised her daughter and endured long periods of poverty.
To support fellow artists, she launched The Floating Museum, bringing site-specific art to reclaimed public spaces. She was also one of the first to document women artists' lives and work in her acclaimed documentary !W.A.R. (Women, Art, Revolution). Private I traces her lifelong commitment to experimentation-embracing film, video, AI, chatbots, touch screens, even her own DNA-to challenge ideas of identity and warn of the perils of technology and surveillance. At its core, Private I is a moving portrait of resilience, artistic innovation, and personal transformation through friendship, family, and fearless creativity.
"Lynn Hershman Leeson's universe is the super-radical and unstoppably empowered kindergarten of all our wildest dreams" - Tilda Swinton
About the Author
Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films over the last five decades. Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues including: the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. She is a recipient of many awards including a Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. And in 2022, she was awarded a special mention from the Jury for her participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. In 2023, Pratt Institute of Art in NY awarded her with an Honorary Doctorate. Creative Capital awarded her with their Distinguished Artist Award in 2023. SFMOMA acquired the museum's first NFT from Hershman Leeson in 2023. Her six feature films-Strange Culture, Teknolust, Conceiving Ada, !Women Art Revolution: A Secret History, Tania Libre, and The Electronic Diaries-are in worldwide distribution. Her artwork is featured in many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She lives in San Francisco, California.
Reviews
"Lynn Hershman Leeson's universe is the super-radical and unstoppably empowered kindergarten of all our wildest dreams: where no limit exists to our optimism and curiosity, where even our intellects can bask in glee and play."
-Tilda Swinton
"I see in Lynn's work: revolution in action, revolution in a frame, revolution at the speed of light as it tries to capture light. Lynn's intelligence: lightning in a bottle with the cap almost coming off always because her energy is too great to contain, and no one medium can contain it, let alone one persona. So much to learn, to think about and observe."
-Hilton Als
"Lynn Hershman Leeson has always been ahead of the pack in her fusion of art and science. As early as the 1960s she foresaw the technology-permeated world of today. She was making computer-based work in the 1970s, and went on to experiment with artificial intelligence and virtual reality as art media. At a time when so much new art feels so old, this work feels like the future, which is now."
-Holland Cotter, The New York Times
"In our current age of digital avatars, technological surveillance, and turbulent identity politics, few artists seem as relevant-and arguably as oracular-as Lynn Hershman Leeson."
-Robert Slifkin, The Art Review
"Spanning half a century, the pioneering art of America's Lynn Hershman Leeson is strange, beautiful and, best of all, funny."
-Laura Cumming, The Guardian
"Lynn Hershman Leeson was the originator of our current artistic zeitgeist, and the first to explore many of the groundbreaking ideas that shape our current reality. I'm grateful to Lynn for showing me what it means to subvert the mainstream and create on my own terms. Lynn was there, let the people know!!"
-Martine Syms
"Lynn Hershman Leeson is one of the most influential media artists of our times."
-Rudolf Frieling, Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA
"It is fair to make the claim that Hershman Leeson was several decades ahead of her time, for she saw the potential of media to subvert itself." -Lisa Long, Artistic Director of the Julia Stoschek Foundation
Book Information
ISBN 9798988670087
Author Lynn Hershman Leeson
Format Hardback
Imprint ZE Books
Publisher ZE Books
