Dead Peasant - by Lisa Baldissera (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Drawing on her decades of navigating the art world, Lisa Baldissera weaves writing conventions from the visual arts with the imaginative possibilities of magic realism and autofiction in this groundbreaking collection of short fiction.

The stories in Dead Peasant reveal the fraught circumstances and neglected emotions of an underclass who toil below the glossy economies of the international high-art world, including artists and art workers. Here, characters from across centuries are haunted by war, floods, and their parental histories. An auction-house worker vomits blueberries on an art-collecting oligarch. An aspiring curator converses with Lindsay Lohan about an exhibition of horse paintings before tragedy strikes. An archivist studies planet Earth from space, reflecting on tax havens and the embattled ecology.

Through these startling, affective, incisive, and fun stories, Baldissera chronicles the unique challenges of the art world and the damage it inflicts on those struggling to get by. Like the eviscerative work of Rachel Cusk and the dark humour of Miranda July, she satirizes the neoliberal double-speak of the 'creative economy' and its punifiying forces, to ask, what is it, truly, that art can do now?

Review Quotes

"Lisa Baldissera's thirteen missives in Dead Peasant hit sure and true. For those of us who have worked lonely, wept privately, or hurried to get something impossible finished immediately, this book is for you."

"These are deftly written, impressive and intelligent stories. With her keen, curatorial eye, Lisa Baldissera thoughtfully and sensitively navigates the intersections of art, labour and commerce, paying particular attention to how people seek--and occasionally find--meaning amid systems intent on their dehumanization."

About the Author

LISA BALDISSERA has worked in curatorial roles in public art galleries in Western Canada since 1999, including as Director at Griffin Art Projects, Senior Curator at Contemporary Calgary, Chief Curator at Mendel Art Gallery, and Curator of Contemporary Art at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. She holds MFAs in creative writing and art, and a PhD in art writing and curating. Her work has been published in PUBLIC Journal of Art Culture Ideas, and her thematic curatorial projects have included critical examinations of art and writing, social practice, and Emily Carr. She lives in Sechelt, BC.