Your Critique is Superficial: A Le Tigre Tour Diary

“Here I am, right now, writing. And over the past few weeks, I’ve saved some empty dated posts as placeholders. I’ll edit them to create time-stamped forgeries of regular entries; I’ll pretend that I wrote consistently on the road. I won’t pretend. I’ll create an effect.”

Over the course of seven months in 2023, Johanna Fateman penned “Yr Critique is Superficial,” a diaristic account of the extended reunion tour of her early-aughts-era punk band Le Tigre. Amid and between the sold-out shows: the death of Sinead O’Connor; the loss of a job; a crowd gathered for an encore performance of an unsame song.

Johanna Fateman

Johanna Fateman is a writer, musician, and co-chief art critic at CULTURED magazine. In the past, she wrote regularly for The New Yorker, 4Columns, and Artforum, where she was a contributing editor. In 2023, her band Le Tigre performed for the first time since 2005.