Mina Loy (1882–1966) was one of the most iconoclastic figures in modernism. A groundbreaking poet, she also left an indelible mark in painting, drawing, prose, art criticism, and fashion. Mina Loy: Strangeness Is Inevitable is the first book to examine the full scope of her extraordinary career, demonstrating Loy’s transformative impact on the visual arts as well as the literary avant-garde of the twentieth century.
Presenting dozens of Loy’s paintings, drawings, and constructions alongside selections of her poems and writings, this book gives a comprehensive overview of the complex images and objects Loy created and situates them in the larger context of her life and work. It explores Loy’s pursuit of truth and beauty, arguing that her engagement with the emphatically “unbeautiful” materials of the Bowery—such as rags and bottle caps—reflects her questioning of truth. The book positions Loy within the broader context of surrealist art; sheds light on her relationships with influential figures such as Gertrude Stein, Marcel Duchamp, and Wyndham Lewis; and addresses Loy’s enduring relevance today.
Featuring rare and previously unpublished artworks, Mina Loy: Strangeness Is Inevitable reveals this visionary artist’s extraordinary contributions as an image-maker, writer, and cultural arbiter, introducing her work to a new generation of readers and charting new directions in art history, women’s studies, poetry, and modernist studies.
Published in association with the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Exhibition Schedule
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine
April 6–September 17, 2023
Jennifer R. Gross is a modern and contemporary art curator and scholar whose books include The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America. Dawn Ades is professor emerita of the history and theory of art at the University of Essex. Roger L. Conover, a writer and editor, is the executor of Mina Loy’s literary estate. Ann Lauterbach is the David and Ruth Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
"[Mina Loy] gives a crucial account of Loy’s varied life and art, and also shines a light on other aspects of her multifaceted creative output, including her work as a writer, poet, playwright, inventor, and fashion and industrial designer. . . . This book provides an essential foundation for future scholarship on this fascinating and enigmatic artist."—Lauren Moya Ford, Hyperallergic
"Loy’s repute as a writer (poet, satirist, polemicist, critic, feminist), and the international scholarship around it, underpins how the visual works are here brought to public attention. The contributors approach the task discursively: Lauterbach considering Loy’s engagement with truth and beauty, Ades exploring the trajectory from Dada to the late constructions, and Conover writing more self-reflexively as a result of his experience of 50 years studying and editing Loy’s work. This is a noble endeavour."—Matthew Gale, The Art Newspaper
"[Mina Loy] significantly restores [the artist] to the center of international 20th century Modernism. . . . [The] catalog allow[s] both a historical and contemporary view of Loy, analyzing her literary and artistic careers and works historically through her archive, and also in light of an expansive current concept of artistic production. The catalog’s contributors . . . look back and forth between word and image, knitting back together the different parts of her life—social, literary, artistic, and entrepreneurial—that have formerly separated Loy’s accomplishments and obscured her art historical importance."—Amy Rahn, Brooklyn Rail
"[A] fascinating exhibition catalog."—Jorge S. Arango, Portland Press Herald
"Loy has long been recognized for her poetry (among poets, anyway), yet gradually, recognition of her multi-faceted artistic practice has increased—and with Mina Loy: Strangeness Is Inevitable . . . it is irrevocably clearer than ever."—Patrick James Dunagan, Rain Taxi Review of Books
