Johanna Hedva's novel Your Love Is Not Good satirizes art world politics and identity

Johanna Hedva's novel Your Love Is Not Good presents a triple-layered narrative exploring art world dynamics through fiction. The book follows an unnamed mixed-race Korean-American queer painter navigating professional ambitions and personal identity. Structured around painterly techniques like pentimento and impasto, chapters mirror the protagonist's psychological unraveling. Her journey includes exhibitions in Los Angeles and Berlin, mentorship from a supportive gallery, and encounters with vapid artists and flippant curators. A performance artist's call for nonwhite artists to boycott commercial institutions triggers the painter's crisis about her place in the art world. Historical artists Sonja Sekula, Arshile Gorky, and Constance Mayer appear in ominous factual paragraphs about suicide throughout the text. The protagonist's mother, an abusive artist, haunts her memories while a white trust-fund dilettante model inspires successful paintings. Published by And Other Stories for £16.99 in hardcover, the novel blends bildungsroman, satire, and morality play. Hedva critiques art world hierarchies, strategic political gestures, and professional relationships through sharp observations. The title's accusatory 'your' potentially implicates the art world itself as the target of the book's critique.