Fictional reviews in this book were influenced by actual reviews of the work of Lucy Dodd and Marina Abramovich, and a passage on a particular type of brush is directly inspired by the words of Jack Whitten in an interview with Robert Storr, from Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting. Other works that I found valuable during this process include: “Women, Art and Ideology” by Griselda Pollock; “Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out: The Rejection of Lee Lozano” by Helen Molesworth; “The End of Painting” by Douglas Crimp; “The Untroubled Mind” by Agnes Martin; “Making Waves: The Legacy of Lee Lozano” by Katy Seigel and David Reed; statements from Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Anselm Keifer, Elizabeth Murray, David Reed, and Joan Mitchell in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz; The Collected Writings of Robert Smithson edited by Jack Flam; Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous by Jan Verwoert; Art Talk: Conversations with 15 Women Artists by Cindy Nemser; and Lee Lozano: Dropout Piece by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, among others.

To my good friends and dedicated readers Abbe Wright, Jane Orvis, Fabienne Lasserre, and Alfred Bridi, for their incisive notes.

To Ian, who never tires of being my own personal encyclopedia, my biggest champion, and the love of my life. Especially, on the ego front, for letting me swerve into your hard-won lane.

And the Laura Owens show at the Whitney in the winter of 2018 was a necessary reminder of how innovative and exceptional painting can be, so thanks to Owens for setting the bar.

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About the Author

BARBARA BOURLAND is the author of the critically acclaimed I’ll Eat When I’m Dead, a Refinery29 Best Book of 2017 and an Irish Independent Book of the Year. People called I’ll Eat When I’m Dead “delectable.” Wednesday Martin, bestselling author of Primates of Park Avenue and Untrue, deemed it “a deft, smart, and hilarious debut.” Kirkus noted that “death by beauty was never so much fun,” and the book was featured in Fortune, Us Weekly, and the New York Post, among others. I’ll Eat When I’m Dead is now available in paperback, and is forthcoming in Hebrew from Matar Press in Israel.

Bourland is a former freelance writer and web producer for titles at Condé Nast and Hearst, among others. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and their dogs.

Fake Like Me was written with support from the Wassaic Project in Wassaic, New York, where Bourland was a resident over the winter of 2017–18.

Also by Barbara Bourland

I’ll Eat When I’m Dead

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions