A fascinating account of Lankton’s inquisitive, sociological and emotional ruminations in advance of her gender-affirming surgery
This is one of the earliest of Greer Lankton’s (1958–96) journals, sketchbooks and daybooks to appear in the artist’s archives, and the first to be published in facsimile form. Written during her time as an art student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the journal offers key insights into Lankton’s mind at work before her career-defining move to New York in 1978, where she would become an important figure of the East Village art scene in the 1980s and early ’90s with her lifelike dolls and theatrical sets. Containing drawings, behavioral diagrams and aspirational, occasionally confessional writing, the journal is a record of imagining the body and mind reconciled through transformation. In these pages, the 19-year-old turns an inquisitive, sociological eye toward the emotional landscape and somatic effects of the days recorded here; days leading up to her decision to undergo hormone treatment and gender-affirming surgery in 1979. Lankton reflects with raw vulnerability and keen self-awareness on critical questions of self-image, social perception, gender normativity and human behavior.
A spread from 'Greer Lankton: Sketchbook, September 1977.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Artforum
Kay Gabriel
In a sense, the line she draws early in the book between creation and dollmaking on the one hand and creation and sex change on the other suggests a life-affirming orientation of her work that critics, distracted by “bad habits” and her early death, have largely skirted.
Document Journal
Streams Journey
The sketchbook is a self-portrait, or rather a meta-portrait of a self seen through particular and hypothetical gazes upon Lankton’s life.
The Whitney Review of New Writing
John Belknap
Greer Lankton's journal-as-sketchbook has all the feral femme fatale of Eve Babitz with something spunky and coming-of-age like Lizzie McGuire.
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FORMAT: Pbk, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 160 pgs / 30 color / 33 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $20.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $29 ISBN: 9798987624913 PUBLISHER: Primary Information AVAILABLE: 10/3/2023 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
A fascinating account of Lankton’s inquisitive, sociological and emotional ruminations in advance of her gender-affirming surgery
This is one of the earliest of Greer Lankton’s (1958–96) journals, sketchbooks and daybooks to appear in the artist’s archives, and the first to be published in facsimile form. Written during her time as an art student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the journal offers key insights into Lankton’s mind at work before her career-defining move to New York in 1978, where she would become an important figure of the East Village art scene in the 1980s and early ’90s with her lifelike dolls and theatrical sets.
Containing drawings, behavioral diagrams and aspirational, occasionally confessional writing, the journal is a record of imagining the body and mind reconciled through transformation. In these pages, the 19-year-old turns an inquisitive, sociological eye toward the emotional landscape and somatic effects of the days recorded here; days leading up to her decision to undergo hormone treatment and gender-affirming surgery in 1979. Lankton reflects with raw vulnerability and keen self-awareness on critical questions of self-image, social perception, gender normativity and human behavior.
