Artist Books / Artist’s Novels (Vol. 3): Alissa Bennett

Artist Books / Artist’s Novels is an ongoing inquiry by Stephanie La Cava that looks at the intersection between visual art and literature. Each entry is a conversation with an artist or writer whose books defy genre expectations and exist outside of the traditional form.

Volume 1: Seth Price
Volume 2: Paul Chan
Volume 3: Alissa Bennett
Volume 4: Ed Atkins
Volume 5: Ed Ruscha

Stephanie LaCava in Conversation with Alissa Bennett

It’s astounding that not more attention has been paid to the phenomenon of “artist’s novels,” a messy genre of fiction written by artists known for their visual and conceptual work. Henry Darger, Yayoi Kusama and Francis Picabia all wrote fiction. The latter, known primarily for his paintings wrote an autobiographical novel in 1924 entitled Caravanserail, which was reissued in 2013 in its original French. Picabia seems an appropriate grandfather for a new generation of artists interested in the creation and distribution of words.

Alissa Bennett’s artist book-zine Dead is Better consists of eighteen essays, each about the death of a celebrity. It may seem an unlikely study for the exploration of artist’s novel, but it’s the ultimate mix of innovative personal narrative and creatively-formatted cultural criticism. While she had been researching and recording these entries for years, Bennett credits Frank Haines of the imprint Heinzfeller Nileisist for making the publication happen. She met Haines at a Christmas party. He recognized her from her Instagram where she had been posting reviews of her favorite drug documentaries, one of her many projects that illustrate an example of new media approaches to the distribution of text.

Raised in Rhode Island, Bennett modeled and traveled before settling in New York where she decided to study literature and cultural analysis. Her interest in Victorian mourning rituals, especially the relationship between capitalism and mourning, translated into a thesis on the conflation of illness and femininity in the 19th century. She wrote constantly, including scripts for the artist Sue de Beer and “a book about bad teenagers that I never published.”

For the past few years, Bennett has occupied two different roles in the art world. She writes catalogue essays that are primarily fiction for artists like Piotr Uklanski and Bjarne Melgaard, as well as works with talent at Team Gallery.

—Stephanie LaCava

STEPHANIE LACAVA: Dead is Better has a deceptively simple premise and mass appeal. And yet, your voice. It’s so singular, funny, and knowing. The sensationalist subject matter is a way to deliver a more complex message. Early on, you refer to the work as “this cheap study of death and celebrity.” But what follows is an unconventional personal essay, a hybrid form of cultural criticism....