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Affinities: On Art and Fascination
A meditation on the power and pleasures of the image, from paintings to photographs to migraine auras, by one of Britain's finest literary minds.
In Affinities, Brian Dillon, who Joyce Carol Oates has said writes “fascinating prose . . . on virtually any subject,” explores images and artists he is drawn to and analyzes the attraction. What does it mean to claim affinity with a picture? What do feelings of affinity imply about the experience of art and of the world? Affinities is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire, or solidarity, but has aspects of all three. Approaching this subject via discrete examples, Dillon examines works by artists such as Dora Maar and Andy Warhol, Rinko Kawauchi and Susan Hiller, as well as scientific or vernacular images of sea creatures and migraine auras. Written as a series of linked essays, Affinities completes a trilogy, with Essayism and Suppose a Sentence, about the intimate and abstract pleasures of reading and looking.
In Affinities, Brian Dillon, who Joyce Carol Oates has said writes “fascinating prose . . . on virtually any subject,” explores images and artists he is drawn to and analyzes the attraction. What does it mean to claim affinity with a picture? What do feelings of affinity imply about the experience of art and of the world? Affinities is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire, or solidarity, but has aspects of all three. Approaching this subject via discrete examples, Dillon examines works by artists such as Dora Maar and Andy Warhol, Rinko Kawauchi and Susan Hiller, as well as scientific or vernacular images of sea creatures and migraine auras. Written as a series of linked essays, Affinities completes a trilogy, with Essayism and Suppose a Sentence, about the intimate and abstract pleasures of reading and looking.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 16, 2023
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1956 people want to read
About the author
Brian Dillon
82 books209 followersBRIAN DILLON was born in Dublin in 1969. His books include Objects in This Mirror: Essays (Sternberg Press, 2014), Sanctuary (Sternberg Press, 2011), Ruins (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2011), Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (Penguin, 2009) and In the Dark Room (Penguin 2005).
His writing appears regularly in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Artforum and frieze. Dillon is reader in critical writing at the Royal College of Art, and UK editor of Cabinet magazine. He is working on a book about the Great Explosion at Faversham in 1916.
His writing appears regularly in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Artforum and frieze. Dillon is reader in critical writing at the Royal College of Art, and UK editor of Cabinet magazine. He is working on a book about the Great Explosion at Faversham in 1916.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
February 3, 2023
Award-winning writer, curator and critic, Brian Dillon’s Affinities stands alone but also works brilliantly as a companion piece to earlier books like Suppose a Sentence in that he’s continuing to write about things that he loves or is fascinated by. This time round, his focus is on images, a project that grew out of his experiences in the early months of pandemic lockdowns. Dillon effortlessly combines aspects of memoir, reflection and analysis, presenting an array of accessible, intelligent and contemplative, short essays or reflective pieces centred on individual images or artists. These are interspersed with a series of roving and roaming thoughts on the nature of affinity, what it means to be drawn to or experience the sensation of personal affinity with a photograph or perhaps a painting or even a still from a movie – some form of object or visual encounter that may be appealing, something that may provoke pleasure or stimulate ideas or simply, inexplicably, linger in the mind. His choices are wonderfully eclectic including discussions of Claude Cahun’s surrealist photos to Hannah Hoch’s Dadaist collages, Francesca Woodman’s mysterious reinventions of the self-portrait and Kikuji Kawada’s visions of Japan - although part of what made this so enjoyable for me is that a number of his chosen artworks overlapped with ones I’ve also felt connected to or been intrigued by. For readers unfamiliar with Dillon, if you enjoy or are interested in art and visual culture or if you’ve liked the kind of essays associated with writers like Maggie Nelson, Olivia Laing or Eula Biss then he’s well worth exploring.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions for an ARC
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions for an ARC
November 2, 2022
What a smart and thoughtful writer Dillon is! This book would be especially good for readers (unlike me!) who are as at home with visual images as they are with texts as this collection of essays explores the affinities between media with nuance and an accessible complexity.
While this is not an academic book, it does draw on academic theory (think Barthes, Sontag and so on, writers who have theorised visuality) but isn't weighed down with either footnotes (there is a list of illustrations at the back) or with the burden of an argument. The writing is more free-flowing, making unexpected connections and I especially loved the range of images from seventeenth century engravings to late Victorian photographic portraits to modern images. Divided up into fairly short pieces, this is perfect for dipping into for some intellectual but not dull companionship on the commute.
Many thanks to Fitzcarraldo for an ARC via NetGalley
While this is not an academic book, it does draw on academic theory (think Barthes, Sontag and so on, writers who have theorised visuality) but isn't weighed down with either footnotes (there is a list of illustrations at the back) or with the burden of an argument. The writing is more free-flowing, making unexpected connections and I especially loved the range of images from seventeenth century engravings to late Victorian photographic portraits to modern images. Divided up into fairly short pieces, this is perfect for dipping into for some intellectual but not dull companionship on the commute.
Many thanks to Fitzcarraldo for an ARC via NetGalley
December 23, 2024
3.5*
Duidelijk minus een halve ster voor de volgende typering van mijn #1 Spotify artist sinds 2020: "Dean Martin, the blithest, laziest, most heedless of stars" (267). Of plus een halve ster, not sure.
"A constant suspicion, unchanged since I was a student: that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. Instead, I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill. For a while I plunge into an artist's work and can hardly breathe for its engrossing qualities and the perplex of things to which it attaches. ... So many dream states in which for a time not much else matters but the word, sound or image at hand and what it seems to teach you. Suspension of disbelief: a condition essential to writing about the thing, but which then evanesces when the work is done, and goes--where?" (277)
Duidelijk minus een halve ster voor de volgende typering van mijn #1 Spotify artist sinds 2020: "Dean Martin, the blithest, laziest, most heedless of stars" (267). Of plus een halve ster, not sure.
"A constant suspicion, unchanged since I was a student: that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. Instead, I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill. For a while I plunge into an artist's work and can hardly breathe for its engrossing qualities and the perplex of things to which it attaches. ... So many dream states in which for a time not much else matters but the word, sound or image at hand and what it seems to teach you. Suspension of disbelief: a condition essential to writing about the thing, but which then evanesces when the work is done, and goes--where?" (277)
September 22, 2023
Brian Dillon’s Affinities is the kind of book I typically adore — one that acts as a pathway of discovery to other works of art, that obligates you hold it in one hand while Wikipedia is at the fingertips of your other, whose author's Nabokovesque vocabulary is so peculiar and adept at describing specifically what it wants, but which requires I also humbly keep Google open while reading...
The premise is that these essays that speak to art with which Dillon feels “affinity,” a “kinship,” some resonance or dialogue with his soul, and that a dialogue is also formed between the art pieces themselves. (This immediately conjures to my mind what I’m trying to do when I place Kafka next to Bachmann, Bachmann next to Rilke, and so on and so forth, on my bookshelf…) In the introductory pages of Affinities, Dillon exhausts his dextrous linguistic capabilities trying to explain what he is doing here. He describes it as “a collection of writings about art and artifacts that have hung around in [his] ‘image repertoire’ (Roland Barthes’ phrase) for years” and writes that the initial idea was to write essays that were purely “free-floating reflection, liberated from the need of argument or judgment… therefore more intimate, more attuned to [their] object[s].”
It seems logical that Dillon would avoid a critical lens in examining the works he holds most dear. To my mind, a person’s innate, gut feeling of intense attraction towards an artist or their work requires no persuasive argument or justification; often it’s a sensation that cannot even be well-articulated or argued. Indeed, it’s difficult to write about those things we love most. But because Dillon often elides his personal connection to the pieces and avoids criticism, there is a void left in that space. These essays seem just like art pieces themselves — something he has put on a pedestal for the reader to look at, take in, and then leave, except, unlike the visual pieces he describes, his words leave little lasting impression of the thing. I certainly felt I didn't glean the full effect of the works until I had Googled and saw them, being that of course there's only so much black and white text on the page can convey.
Much of the essays read like either fawning odes or mere descriptions of the works he cherishes; others are straight-up biographies of their creators, many of whom, sure, led interesting lives as women or queer artists, unappreciated in their times. Names are dropped with an air of pretension, as if the reader should, but of course, already know who these people are. When I got to an essay on a work of art I was familiar with, I found myself nodding along to his characterizations, visualizing it in my mind… but then what?
Perhaps that is a fault of the very concept and a pitfall of writing about what you love — how do you avoid a voice of sheer adulation, or rather, how do you make that interesting? Dillon seems to try to remedy this gap with ten “Essays on Affinity” scattered throughout the collection, but even these do little to clarify his intentions or give his artistic examinations greater depth. Indeed, in the ninth installment, Dillon defensively cops to his own “suspicion… that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. Instead, I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill.”
I suppose you can accept his characterization and enjoy the essays for what they are. At a certain point, they started to feel formulaic, and as I'm not particularly enthused about modernist architecture or avant-garde photography, I nearly abandoned the collection halfway through. Luckily I didn't, because the final quarter of the collection is filled with Dillon’s best essays — his most personal, and therefore, to me, the most compelling. His essay on the 1981 TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited — among his best and my personal favorite — is a heartfelt piece oozing with the same aching nostalgia as the object of its admiration. He recounts how he sought to emulate Waugh’s foppish queer characters as a young university student and examines how the series has remained culturally relevant for its ability to capture “blazing innocence… wracked with violent nostalgia, touched by kitsch.”
Following this are two more quite personal pieces: one on his religious zealot mother, and another on the paranoiac, hypochondriacal aunt whose photographs he discovered after her death seemed to document her alienation and solitude through images of her home and garden. In both, the images Dillon describes don't stand alone as mere art pieces to be admired for their mysterious beauty; instead, they help him understand the complicated and tortured people in his life and act as a vehicle for him to see their lives through their eyes. That may sound like a groan-inducing cliche, but those personal associations made the work at the center of these essays the most living and breathing kind.
Maybe the art Dillon is into isn't what excites me, and perhaps art appraisal through a memoiresque approach is not what Dillon wanted the collection to be, but based on those last few essays, I felt that a more anecdotal touch would have benefited these pieces. Dillon is doubtless a singular writer and there is much to be gained from reading these essays for what they are, but he achieves, for me, his most resonant tone when he writes about himself. By speaking from beyond himself in much of these essays, he falls out of orbit; the very person with whom these artworks are said to have an “affinity” is lost.
The premise is that these essays that speak to art with which Dillon feels “affinity,” a “kinship,” some resonance or dialogue with his soul, and that a dialogue is also formed between the art pieces themselves. (This immediately conjures to my mind what I’m trying to do when I place Kafka next to Bachmann, Bachmann next to Rilke, and so on and so forth, on my bookshelf…) In the introductory pages of Affinities, Dillon exhausts his dextrous linguistic capabilities trying to explain what he is doing here. He describes it as “a collection of writings about art and artifacts that have hung around in [his] ‘image repertoire’ (Roland Barthes’ phrase) for years” and writes that the initial idea was to write essays that were purely “free-floating reflection, liberated from the need of argument or judgment… therefore more intimate, more attuned to [their] object[s].”
It seems logical that Dillon would avoid a critical lens in examining the works he holds most dear. To my mind, a person’s innate, gut feeling of intense attraction towards an artist or their work requires no persuasive argument or justification; often it’s a sensation that cannot even be well-articulated or argued. Indeed, it’s difficult to write about those things we love most. But because Dillon often elides his personal connection to the pieces and avoids criticism, there is a void left in that space. These essays seem just like art pieces themselves — something he has put on a pedestal for the reader to look at, take in, and then leave, except, unlike the visual pieces he describes, his words leave little lasting impression of the thing. I certainly felt I didn't glean the full effect of the works until I had Googled and saw them, being that of course there's only so much black and white text on the page can convey.
Much of the essays read like either fawning odes or mere descriptions of the works he cherishes; others are straight-up biographies of their creators, many of whom, sure, led interesting lives as women or queer artists, unappreciated in their times. Names are dropped with an air of pretension, as if the reader should, but of course, already know who these people are. When I got to an essay on a work of art I was familiar with, I found myself nodding along to his characterizations, visualizing it in my mind… but then what?
Perhaps that is a fault of the very concept and a pitfall of writing about what you love — how do you avoid a voice of sheer adulation, or rather, how do you make that interesting? Dillon seems to try to remedy this gap with ten “Essays on Affinity” scattered throughout the collection, but even these do little to clarify his intentions or give his artistic examinations greater depth. Indeed, in the ninth installment, Dillon defensively cops to his own “suspicion… that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. Instead, I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill.”
I suppose you can accept his characterization and enjoy the essays for what they are. At a certain point, they started to feel formulaic, and as I'm not particularly enthused about modernist architecture or avant-garde photography, I nearly abandoned the collection halfway through. Luckily I didn't, because the final quarter of the collection is filled with Dillon’s best essays — his most personal, and therefore, to me, the most compelling. His essay on the 1981 TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited — among his best and my personal favorite — is a heartfelt piece oozing with the same aching nostalgia as the object of its admiration. He recounts how he sought to emulate Waugh’s foppish queer characters as a young university student and examines how the series has remained culturally relevant for its ability to capture “blazing innocence… wracked with violent nostalgia, touched by kitsch.”
Following this are two more quite personal pieces: one on his religious zealot mother, and another on the paranoiac, hypochondriacal aunt whose photographs he discovered after her death seemed to document her alienation and solitude through images of her home and garden. In both, the images Dillon describes don't stand alone as mere art pieces to be admired for their mysterious beauty; instead, they help him understand the complicated and tortured people in his life and act as a vehicle for him to see their lives through their eyes. That may sound like a groan-inducing cliche, but those personal associations made the work at the center of these essays the most living and breathing kind.
Maybe the art Dillon is into isn't what excites me, and perhaps art appraisal through a memoiresque approach is not what Dillon wanted the collection to be, but based on those last few essays, I felt that a more anecdotal touch would have benefited these pieces. Dillon is doubtless a singular writer and there is much to be gained from reading these essays for what they are, but he achieves, for me, his most resonant tone when he writes about himself. By speaking from beyond himself in much of these essays, he falls out of orbit; the very person with whom these artworks are said to have an “affinity” is lost.
December 6, 2024
An extremely esoteric book. if you are not one of them “I like art” type girls, this is not for you. and beyond that, you have to be interested in art history, art criticism, the way our brain processes images and the way they intersect our lives— it’s a tall order, the whole thing.
but see, i am one of them “i like art” type girls and i loved this SO much. The writing is thoughtful without being overly didactic. I love the notion of the author putting together a book of images that have affected him; that he cannot seem to get out of his head. A beautiful project that was a joy to dip into. One of the most interesting things i’ve read in a long time. Loved this so much.
but see, i am one of them “i like art” type girls and i loved this SO much. The writing is thoughtful without being overly didactic. I love the notion of the author putting together a book of images that have affected him; that he cannot seem to get out of his head. A beautiful project that was a joy to dip into. One of the most interesting things i’ve read in a long time. Loved this so much.
February 8, 2023
Curious book! Individually, each reflection on a piece of art is informative, engaging, and well written. Taken together, the book seems almost like a memoir, expressed indirectly. It’s interesting, and telling, that Dillon includes “Brideshead Revisited” because he reveals himself to be very much like Charles Ryder. Charles is incapable of apprehending the world directly, without the mediation of art—it’s one of the chief complaints of his wife who asks, “why must my conscience be a pre-Raphaelite picture?”. Brideshead also offers a clue to the extended musing on “affinity”—which, conceptually, Dillon is trying to make meaning out of to varying degrees of success. “Affinity” is a slippery word. Brideshead is a beautiful novel with a unabashedly horrible ideological stance—and yet, it’s a success as a piece of art and we can’t quite excise it from the canon. There’s just something about it, it sticks with you, call it an affinity.
July 1, 2024
Essay on Affinity (after Brian Dillon)
A partial list (or imaginary collage) of images that will not leave the mind. → Gena Rowlands’ Dying Swan in A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Her hair is golden. Her face too. Her eyes closed as if in prayer, with pink and blue balloons from the birthday party bobbing around her. They are slightly out of focus. She beams. → Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1601–1602). Christ guides Thomas’ finger inside his wound with such eroticism. → A serigraph by the so-called Pop Art Nun Sister Corita Kent called daisy (1966). A blossom of words. Each petal says yes. Then, upside down, two heads really are better than one. A reproduction of this print stolen from her catalogue at the university library travelled with me nearly 10,000 miles from the walls of my motel room in Pomona, California to my fiancé’s semi-detached house in Woodstock, Cape Town before it disappeared sometime after we got married. → A photograph of James Baldwin taken by Steve Shapiro in New York in 1963. He is standing at the pulpit above a tufted message: GOD IS LOVE. The preacher’s son may have lost faith in the church but I don’t think he ever relinquished this one belief: God is Love and Love is God. → Monica Vitti laying her hand on the back of Gabriele Ferzetti’s head at the end of L’Avventura (1960). She so desperately wants him to look at her. And yet her vie for his attention is so restrained. This tense gesture contains everything I’ve ever known about women and desire. → Saint Lucy’s eyes in any painting, but especially those painted by Francesco del Cossa to look like leaves. Lucy’s sideways glance. Through which set of eyes is she looking? The ones in her head or the ones in her hands? It’s both, of course, as always: the critic’s way of looking, I like to think.
A partial list (or imaginary collage) of images that will not leave the mind. → Gena Rowlands’ Dying Swan in A Woman Under the Influence (1974). Her hair is golden. Her face too. Her eyes closed as if in prayer, with pink and blue balloons from the birthday party bobbing around her. They are slightly out of focus. She beams. → Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1601–1602). Christ guides Thomas’ finger inside his wound with such eroticism. → A serigraph by the so-called Pop Art Nun Sister Corita Kent called daisy (1966). A blossom of words. Each petal says yes. Then, upside down, two heads really are better than one. A reproduction of this print stolen from her catalogue at the university library travelled with me nearly 10,000 miles from the walls of my motel room in Pomona, California to my fiancé’s semi-detached house in Woodstock, Cape Town before it disappeared sometime after we got married. → A photograph of James Baldwin taken by Steve Shapiro in New York in 1963. He is standing at the pulpit above a tufted message: GOD IS LOVE. The preacher’s son may have lost faith in the church but I don’t think he ever relinquished this one belief: God is Love and Love is God. → Monica Vitti laying her hand on the back of Gabriele Ferzetti’s head at the end of L’Avventura (1960). She so desperately wants him to look at her. And yet her vie for his attention is so restrained. This tense gesture contains everything I’ve ever known about women and desire. → Saint Lucy’s eyes in any painting, but especially those painted by Francesco del Cossa to look like leaves. Lucy’s sideways glance. Through which set of eyes is she looking? The ones in her head or the ones in her hands? It’s both, of course, as always: the critic’s way of looking, I like to think.
September 30, 2023
A breezy introduction to a myriad of photographers and artists by way of thoughtful commentary and poetic description. Not every oeuvre slaps, but the author himself acknowledges that our own affinity and mileage with each piece will vary. Art, and our reactions to it, are inescapably personal. I’m glad to have been exposed to a few more talents across these brisk many chapters!
April 21, 2025
While this book is conceptually interesting, it's less than the sum of its parts. I expected more criticism. Instead, Dillion alternates between giving straightforward descriptions of artworks and delving into the biographies of artists responsible for such pieces. There are snippets that I find compelling, but overall this is an unsatisfying read.
November 20, 2024
4.5- Excellent collection of art analysis on so many works I never would’ve come across otherwise! Yummy!
July 2, 2023
Picked up on a whim since I constantly think about art without realizing that many of the images/artists essayed are actually photographers. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness applied to each image. It helped me appreciate the medium in general and various artists specifically. It also sent me down a photography rabbit hole: almost every paragraph sent me to google to look up images.
June 3, 2023
The reviews on the back of the book link this to Dillon's other works: Essayism and Suppose a Sentence. They are definitely of a kind, and I love reading his work. This is maybe my least favorite of the three. The visual pieces he references are a little esoteric and the writing doesn't quite reach the meditative quality of Suppose a Sentence. Still, a great addition to the library.
June 21, 2025
When I said I wanted to read about how to appreciate photography, this was the book I dreamed of! It came to me via Victoria Chang’s recommendation. I took forever to finish it because I wanted to read the essays one by one, usually before falling asleep, which was perfect.
I enjoyed the descriptions of images and Dillon’s personal reactions to them, and I love the idea of affinity. It’s very comforting and encouraging to me to think of all these beautiful and strange images rescued/resurfaced by Dillon’s attention.
Now I’d love to find a similar book about music!
I enjoyed the descriptions of images and Dillon’s personal reactions to them, and I love the idea of affinity. It’s very comforting and encouraging to me to think of all these beautiful and strange images rescued/resurfaced by Dillon’s attention.
Now I’d love to find a similar book about music!
January 24, 2024
Scattershot vibe snippets that allegedly cohere into some sort of loose “whole.” Not my favourite.
July 2, 2024
What a stellar book, better than any memoir at showing where the author puts his attention, how he's become the writer of these tremendous sentences. In some ways this book reminded me of Maggie Nelson's recent collection, LIKE LOVE, as it's a series of short pieces, mostly about art--but here the interstitial glue sections, rather than being "conversations" (scare quotes, I suppose) are meditations on what is an "affinity" and also glimpses into the author's life and family. Really enjoyed the pieces on artists I know fairly well--Francesca Woodman, William Eggleston, Warhol, Beckett, the Eameses, Rinko Kawauchi (Dillon very good on photograph, especially)--with other pieces giving good reasons to find out more about others, less familiar (e.g. Eileen Gray, Loie Fuller). Again, very sharp, economical writing; a pleasure.
She thought she had disinherited me, but I am not so sure. I share her tendency to hypochondria: a bout of it every few years, whole weeks and months disappearing in a welter of vigilance and dread. What else? A history of periodic isolation verging on agoraphobia. A habit of erecting barriers of fragile dignity and forms of anxious attachment-to certain objects, for instance-when I feel myself threatened. And more. Her obsessive and solitary looking, her fretful listening, her poring over pictures and locking the world away so she could address it only in letters of complaint: it all feels quite familiar. You can pursue vigilance and attention into a kind of fugue state, almost hallucinatory, maybe fully so in her case."
She thought she had disinherited me, but I am not so sure. I share her tendency to hypochondria: a bout of it every few years, whole weeks and months disappearing in a welter of vigilance and dread. What else? A history of periodic isolation verging on agoraphobia. A habit of erecting barriers of fragile dignity and forms of anxious attachment-to certain objects, for instance-when I feel myself threatened. And more. Her obsessive and solitary looking, her fretful listening, her poring over pictures and locking the world away so she could address it only in letters of complaint: it all feels quite familiar. You can pursue vigilance and attention into a kind of fugue state, almost hallucinatory, maybe fully so in her case."
October 23, 2024
This is a dense book that you have to take in pieces. It's also the type of book you can re-read in part or sections at any time, being reminded of interesting ideas from a very thoughtful person. I'm sure I didn't grasp a lot of it on a first reading, and I'll definitely go back to it.
The premise is the author's quest to think about the word affinity and explore its many definitions and nuances. Our current definition in which an affinity has a distinctly positive implication (if I have an affinity for something, I like it) is not its original definition, which was the more neutral one of mere connection. It doesn't really matter why or how the use of the term changed, but the fact that people started using it in numerous ways gives the author windows into talking about things he likes and things that other people have liked. It's interesting stuff, often about artists and writers I've never heard of. I have several avenues of online exploration lined up, thanks to this book. Introducing me to those artists and thinkers is the best thing about this book, or at least the most lasting aspect. I think hearing the author lecture or, better yet, having a monthly sit-down with him over glasses of wine, would be fascinating. He's really smart but also seems accessible, not pretentious, even though he probably can carry on pretentiously at a dinner party about Dadaism when expected to do so.
The premise is the author's quest to think about the word affinity and explore its many definitions and nuances. Our current definition in which an affinity has a distinctly positive implication (if I have an affinity for something, I like it) is not its original definition, which was the more neutral one of mere connection. It doesn't really matter why or how the use of the term changed, but the fact that people started using it in numerous ways gives the author windows into talking about things he likes and things that other people have liked. It's interesting stuff, often about artists and writers I've never heard of. I have several avenues of online exploration lined up, thanks to this book. Introducing me to those artists and thinkers is the best thing about this book, or at least the most lasting aspect. I think hearing the author lecture or, better yet, having a monthly sit-down with him over glasses of wine, would be fascinating. He's really smart but also seems accessible, not pretentious, even though he probably can carry on pretentiously at a dinner party about Dadaism when expected to do so.
September 18, 2023
I'll admit, when I realised this was a book of art criticism essays, my heart sank. Art criticism, especially about stuff I have no experience with, doesn't immediately scream 'a romping good time' to me. But Brian Dillon won me over.
📷
His writing is incisive and concise, and the essays blessedly short. He has a remarkable ability to conjure the numinous, leading you through a photograph or moment in a way that left me pretty spellbound at times. He makes you see the unique, special, distinctly human in art.
•
And this is no merely academic account. Dillon embeds disarming moments of vulnerability and familial context into these pieces. His hypochondria, complicated relationship with his mother, feelings of professional and personal insecurity. Not at all as a means of special pleading, but as an acknowledgement of our common humanity as observers, interpreters of the world.
•
If you've ever left an art gallery feeling unsatisfied, like you've missed something (I know I have), give this a go. Demanding but well worth the effort.
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#affinities #briandillon #booktok #bookstagram #hay #boysread #nzbookcommunity #goodreads #book #art #artcriticism #criticism #essays @fitzcarraldoeditions @nyrbooks
📷
His writing is incisive and concise, and the essays blessedly short. He has a remarkable ability to conjure the numinous, leading you through a photograph or moment in a way that left me pretty spellbound at times. He makes you see the unique, special, distinctly human in art.
•
And this is no merely academic account. Dillon embeds disarming moments of vulnerability and familial context into these pieces. His hypochondria, complicated relationship with his mother, feelings of professional and personal insecurity. Not at all as a means of special pleading, but as an acknowledgement of our common humanity as observers, interpreters of the world.
•
If you've ever left an art gallery feeling unsatisfied, like you've missed something (I know I have), give this a go. Demanding but well worth the effort.
.
.
.
#affinities #briandillon #booktok #bookstagram #hay #boysread #nzbookcommunity #goodreads #book #art #artcriticism #criticism #essays @fitzcarraldoeditions @nyrbooks
October 29, 2023
it's because of my academic background but seeing a critic (or anti-critic, whatever) put a book like this together where the short chapters connect like a "loose seam" that does not in any way mention Deleuze + Guattari and rhizomatic thought just rubs me the wrong way. this isn't novel anymore! As for what we're dealing with conceptually here, I think writers like Deleuze or Lacan's seminars might be more useful. When Dillon writes "When I wrote affinity in a piece of critical prose, perhaps I was trying to point elsewhere, to a realm of the unthought, [the] unthinkable, something unkillable by attitudes or arguments.", we can see this elaborated more effectively in places like Lacan's seminars (Name of the Father potentially? it's been awhile since I've delved in there).
in any case, this has reminded me that i really like Wayne Koestenbaum, a writer who performs the tasks set out in this book much more to my liking
in any case, this has reminded me that i really like Wayne Koestenbaum, a writer who performs the tasks set out in this book much more to my liking
January 21, 2024
The book opens with an essay on what a period (as in the punctuation mark) appears like under a microscope. By showing how the literal symbol of finitude contains endless multitudes, the chapter set the mood and message of the book perfectly: ‘there is always more to see, if you care to look’.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book: the writing is superb, the range of works of art discussed (even if mostly photography) all but guarantees you’ll encounter at least something new, and the critical insights are elegant and effective. While, given the range of topics, I was naturally drawn to some more than others, there were few I didn’t care about, even if it was the first time hearing about them. The recurring essays on affinity, similarly, were not all individually strong, but left a compelling impression overall.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book: the writing is superb, the range of works of art discussed (even if mostly photography) all but guarantees you’ll encounter at least something new, and the critical insights are elegant and effective. While, given the range of topics, I was naturally drawn to some more than others, there were few I didn’t care about, even if it was the first time hearing about them. The recurring essays on affinity, similarly, were not all individually strong, but left a compelling impression overall.
September 8, 2024
Brian Dillon's Affinities is a poetic and profound exploration of the connections we feel towards art, ideas, and even everyday objects. It frees you from thinking that affinities need to make sense or fit into neat categories. Dillon shows that the things we love—whether it’s a painting, a photograph, or even a random image from the past—can be powerful without needing a clear explanation.
Rather than telling you what to think, Dillon invites you to dwell in your own reactions, to trust your instincts. His prose is fluid and poetic, making the whole experience of reading Affinities feel like a work of art in itself. Recommended for anyone who finds joy in the unexpected, the personal, and the mysterious connections that give life its richness, also for on to find their own affinities.
Rather than telling you what to think, Dillon invites you to dwell in your own reactions, to trust your instincts. His prose is fluid and poetic, making the whole experience of reading Affinities feel like a work of art in itself. Recommended for anyone who finds joy in the unexpected, the personal, and the mysterious connections that give life its richness, also for on to find their own affinities.
January 21, 2025
“Where was history — no, historicity? This was a quarter of a century ago and more, but still sometimes when I sit down to write I hear, and amplify in my head, this accusing voice. Are you not simply connecting some things to other things? Do you call this criticism? What is wrong with you?” Affinities is a kind of conclusion to a loose trilogy of books by Brian Dillon, begun with Essayism and Suppose A Sentence. Affinities is formed of essays concerned with images, from Billie Whitelaw’s mouth in Samuel Beckett’s Not I to the films of Powell and Pressburger, the work of Diane Arbus and Francesca Woodman as photographers to the imagery and meaning of written works such as Brideshead Revisited, and so many others; I enjoyed essays on the above subjects, one on Dennis Potter, another on Rinko Kawauchi. I also enjoyed the more personal ‘For The Simple Reason Is’, which stood out amongst the more critical pieces, and also the ten essays on affinity interspersed through the collection. Above all I was captivated by Dillon’s grappling with his own writing, his “constant suspicion […] that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. […] I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill. For a while I plunge into an artist's work and can hardly breathe for its engrossing qualities and the perplex of things to which it attaches. […] Suspension of disbelief a condition essential to writing […] but which then evanesces when the work is done, and goes — where?”
July 14, 2025
I liked discovering some of the artists that he writes about in this book, (like Claude Cahun or Marie Louise Fuller, or Helen Levitt. I think it's wonderful how he gets into each image and describes it. But I was expecting not only description but something more personal. He is after all wonderful at personal essays. Maybe I wanted more connections. Still I enjoyed some parts, maybe at times it seemed like I did not just want him to tell me about the art itself, but also about his personal connection to it.
November 22, 2023
A constant suspicion, unchanged since I was a student: that nothing I write pursues an argument or is built to convince. Instead, I simply get into a mood about the thing I am meant to be writing about, and pursue that mood until it is exhausted or has filled the space it was meant to fill. For a while I plunge into an artist's work and can hardly breathe for its engrossing qualities and the perplex of things to which it attaches. [277]
July 23, 2024
A thoughtful and thought provoking collection of essays that I enjoyed very much. Intimate writing full of personal reflection and yet the book is very accessible. It's made me consider more deeply why I like and am attracted to certain artworks more than others.
Recommended, my thanks to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the opportunity to read Affinities.
Recommended, my thanks to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the opportunity to read Affinities.
July 27, 2023
Really enjoyed the format and the length of each essay. It was nice to learn about art through the personal affinities of the author. Some of the essay topics were boring and felt a little out of place so that’s why I’m not rating it higher.
May 4, 2025
This book is a wonderful collection of criticism and meditations on art, impact and longevity. There are a number of times I was surprised by the emotional and personal turns. A book I look forward to revisiting, if just for a few chapters here and there.
June 13, 2023
WOW; going to read "Essayism" and "Suppose a Sentence" immediately; Brian Dillon is an exhilarating critic
July 4, 2023
I loved the premise and enjoyed learning about the artists but don’t feel I know much about Dillon’s own thoughts, in what way he is fascinated.
July 10, 2023
I definitely have an affinity to these essays. They are seriously fascinating.
August 31, 2023
Interesting, quick, and easy read! Would definitely recommend reading this!
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