ELSEWHERE: Writings on Art

Lyra's work materializes the many near silences that "clog at the gates" of current times, often delimiting the purview of those whose words she chronicles. Too aware of how an artist's practice is laced with the "soft traps" of institutional politics, Lyra lends release to what can seem humorless conditions of making. Wit, irony, and sarcasm come together as she tells us in so many words and toons: keep the stakes high.

In this collection, problematic encounters, deadening productions, and misled creatures of the artworld, are all subject to a raw and cynical frankness of thought. As in Lyra's artistic work (often found in white cubes, the very subject of her critique) criticality finds expression in attentive observation and, more, importantly, unequivocal questioning, as in "Dear Artist, how much are you worth?"

Giving room, allowing for examination despite the imminence of the prestige machine, makes for hardened writing that is, at its heart, not withdrawn from the possibility of demanding hope. It is a demand Lyra makes unblinkingly, asking us to do the same.

Lara Acuin, Writer