History of Her Own

Lynn Hershman Leeson: A History of Her Own is the first reader of essays devoted to the work of the renowned artist and media pioneer Lynn Hershman Leeson, published on the occasion of her first solo exhibition in Düsseldorf, at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, curated by Lisa Long. Bringing together over forty reprints and newly commissioned contributions across 400 pages, the book spans five decades of Hershman Leeson’s groundbreaking practice and traces its impact across disciplines.Since the 1960s, Hershman Leeson has shaped artistic discourses on performance, interactivity, cyborgs, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and biogenetics, paving a path that many generations would follow. She has collaborated with some of the most significant scientists of our time, bringing art into complex dialogues with science. As a professor and a critic, Hershman Leeson has written extensively on art, media, and politics. Between 1974 and 1978, she commissioned more than three hundred artists to present artworks in public spaces as part of the Floating Museum, which she founded as a platform for artists excluded from institutions at the time. Alongside her art making, Hershman Leeson has written and directed six feature films and documentaries, a selection of which—including Conceiving Ada (1997), Teknolust (2002), and !Women Art Revolution (2010)—will be screened as part of the public program accompanying the exhibition.Texts by Katherine C. M. Adams, Line Ajan, Hilton Als, Karen Archey, Robert Atkins, Jack Chipman, Hilaire Dufresne, Judith Dunham, Alfred Frankenstein, Rudolf Frieling, Gabriella Giannachi, Herbert Goode, Josefin Granetoft, Isobel Harbison, Martin Herbert, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sabine Himmelsbach, Juliana Huxtable, David E. James, Amelia Jones, Prudence Juris, Pamela M. Lee, Lisa Long, James Minton, Margaret Morse, Margot Norton, Peggy Phelan, Laura Poitras, Moira Roth, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Yvonne Spielmann, Jordan Stein, Kyle Stephan, and Diane Tani