A conversation with emerging writer, art critic, curator and Princeton alumnus Simon Wu ’17 as he discusses his new book, Dancing on My Own, with Monica Youn ’93, Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Visiting Poet. Dancing on My Own is Wu’s recently published collection of expertly researched, beautifully rendered essays that discuss the institutions of art, capitalism, and identity. Followed by a book signing and reception, with books available for purchase.
Cosponsored by Labyrinth Books, Center for Career Development, and Department of Art & Archaeology.
Related Event: Feeding the Arts Dinner with Simon Wu
Prior to the book talk at 6 PM at Labyrinth Books, current Princeton students are invited to join writer and art curator Simon Wu ’17 for a private dinner and career conversation from 4:30-5:30 PM. Dinner and a copy of Simon’s book, Dancing on My Own, provided. Advanced registration required.
For Princeton University Students only.
Register for Feeding the Arts through Handshake
About Dancing on My Own
In Robyn’s 2010 track “Dancing on My Own,” the Swedish pop-singer chronicles a night on the dance floor in the shadow of a former lover. She is bitter, angry, and at times desperate, and yet, by the time the chorus arrives, her frustration has melted away. She decides to dance on her own, and, in this way, she transforms her solitude into a more complex joy. Taking inspiration from Robyn’s seminal track, emerging art critic and curator Simon Wu dances through the institutions of art, capitalism, and identity in these expertly researched, beautifully rendered essays. In “A Model Childhood” he catalogs the decades’ worth of clutter in his mother’s suburban garage and its meaning for himself and his family. In “For Everyone,” Wu explores the complicated sensation of the Telfar bag (often referred to as “the Brooklyn Birkin”) and asks whether fashion can truly be revolutionary in a capitalist system—if something can truly be “for everyone” without undercutting someone else. Throughout, Wu centers the sticky vulnerability of living in a body in a world where history is mapped into every choice we make, every party drug we take, and every person we kiss. Wu’s message is that to dance on one’s own is to move from critique into joy. To approach identity with the utmost sympathy for the kinds of belonging it might promise, and to look beyond it. For readers of Cathy Park Hong and Alexander Chee, Dancing on My Own is a deeply felt and ultimately triumphant anthem about the never-ending journey of discovering oneself, and introduces a brilliant new writer on the rise.
About the Guests
Photo credit: Jared Lew
Simon Wu ’17 is a curator and writer involved in collaborative art production and research. He has organized exhibitions and programs at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, MoMA, and David Zwirner, among other venues. In 2021 he was awarded an Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant and was featured in Cultured magazine’s Young Curators series. He was a 2018 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and is currently in the Ph.D. program in History of Art at Yale University. He has two brothers, Nick and Duke, and loves the ocean.
Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehansimon
Monica Youn ’93 is Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Visiting Poet at Princeton. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Blackacre (Graywolf Press, 2016), which won the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award, and the PEN Open Book Award, and was longlisted for the National Book Award, as well as being named one of the best poetry collections of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post and BuzzFeed. Her previous book Ignatz (Four Way Books, 2010) was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Witter Bynner Fellowship of the Library of Congress, and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, among other awards. She is a member of the curatorial group, The Racial Imaginary Institute. The daughter of Korean immigrants and a former lawyer, she was raised in Houston, Texas, and now lives in New York City.
Admission & Details
The book talk and signing is free & open to the public.
Directions
Get directions to Labyrinth Bookstore, located at 122 Nassau Street in Princeton.
Accessibility
Labyrinth Books is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
