Lauren Beukes on Artist Ed Young Torching Her Book: “Generous Revenge is the Best Kind”

by Amanda on Oct 17th, 2013

Mandy J Watson from Brainwavez has written about The Shining Girls Charity Art Show organised by Lauren Beukes, which raised R100 000 for the Rape Crisis Centre. The article includes photographs of many of the 95 artworks, which were created by about 50 artists using pages taken from The Shining Girls.

Beukes shared an interesting background story about the contribution made by artist Ed Young. She had criticised his 2004 exhibition Asshole in one of her short stories and was surprised when he expressed interest in contributing to the project. After sending him the page to work with, he burnt it and sent them the ashes. The art show organisers then used the ashes to create an artwork on his behalf (above). Beukes commented that, “Generous revenge is the best kind”.

Ninety-five artworks, depicting around 50 South African artists’ interpretations of themes from author Lauren Beukes’ novel The Shining Girls, formed part of an exhibition and sale to raise funds for Rape Crisis in South Africa.

With the release of each of her novels author Lauren Beukes has organised a charity event to raise funds for a cause that she considers particularly important. In 2010, for example, after the publication of Zoo City, she organised a charity auction of five customised bear sculptures. This year, in honour of her latest novel The Shining Girls, Lauren and curator Jacki Lang put together an art show to benefit Rape Crisis.