This Artwork Changed My Life

This Artwork Changed My Life is a fortnightly series of personal essays that share the stories of life-changing encounters with art.

Art

How I Learned Not to Worry About Being Cool and Fell in Love with Renoir Again

Life

Hannah Höch’s Collage Helped Me Cut Up My Own Relationship to Art and Life

Life

How Christian Marclay’s The Clock Reset My Relationship with Time

Life

How Basquiat’s Art Banished the Monsters from Under a Terrified Toddler’s Bed

Life

How Agnes Martin’s Desert Flower Gave Me the Peace and Reconciliation I Needed

Life

How David Wojnarowicz’s Photographs Helped Me Overcome My Grief

Life

Why Ree Morton’s ‘Don’t Worry, I’ll Only Read You The Good Parts’ Made Me Cry

Life

Did Monet’s Waterloo Bridge Shape My Career as an Art Critic?

Life

How Günter Brus’ Self Painting Showed Me Life’s Psychotic Duality

Life

How Narkevičius’ The Role of a Lifetime Showed Me a New World of Dissent

Life

Rauschenberg’s Mud Muse Taught Me to Find Cohesion Even Amidst Chaos

Life

The Lady of Shalott Taught Me That Female Power Exists Beyond Fairytales

Life

Simone Leigh Proved to Me That Black Women Can Claim Space in a Hostile World

Life

Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit Showed Me the Radical Power of Self-Publishing

Life

Richard Billingham Helped Me to Accept the True Ugliness of Alcoholism

Life

Bill Henson’s Photograph of a Floating Girl Captured My Own Teenage Longing

Life

Paul Nash Taught Me the Unknowable Multiplicity of My Desires

Life

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin Helped Me to Reconnect After an Abortion

Life

Cecilia Vicuña’s Arte Precario Reawakened My Enduring Love of the Sea

Life

Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield Helped Me to Reconcile Art and Environmentalism

Life

Franco Vaccari’s Photomatic D’Italia Taught Me That Infatuation Is All About Image

Life

Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party Taught Me to Take Cooking and Eating Seriously

Life

Richard Prince Showed Me the Impossible Contradictions of Female Sexuality

Life

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore Evokes the Magic of My English Hometown