Public Figures

"Osman puts public memory back in the public memorials."

~Rachel Trousdale, Rain Taxi

""multi-award winner Jena Osman draws on a slide lecture to offer a mediation on public statuary in Philadelphia, particularly those bearing arms.""

~Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

""The essayistic concept at the heart of the book is brilliant. Like the best documentary work, Public Figures answers the hand-wringing question of 'how can art be political' rather simply: you make it about the world. As in the passage quoted above, the playfully intent moments of Osman's guidebook (there are some fantastic pages in which Osman diagrams the intersecting gazes of several martial statues) enliven one's historical imagination, while also revealing a 'you' that moves in our shared present.""

~Zach Savich, Kenyon Review

""What Osman's politically-engaged text does is force us to confront the alternating ugliness and meaninglessness of our historical sense, not to mention the travesties of language that that benighted sense often compels us to endorse. Public Figures is a compelling read from every and any angle.""

~Seth Abramson, Huffington Post

""Osman puts public memory back in the public memorials.""

~Rachel Trousdale, Rain Taxi

""As much as it objects to some wars far away, the essay keeps its heart in Osman's Philly, whose streetscapes point both to the present and back to the U.S. Civil War. Osman's terse juxtapositions, careful background, and her lightly used but deeply relevant quotations place her close to Claudia Rankine, or to Juliana Sphar.""

~Publishers Weekly

"From public statues to photos of soldiers in Iraq, from physical object to recorded history, from what statues see to drone observation logs: Osman invites us, with George Oppen, to see the things we live among—and to know ourselves."

~Rosmarie Waldrop, author of Curves to the Apple

".writers such as Osman are a rarity, adding to the mix her own queries on what research claims is already known. . An architect of complex maps, Osman's exploration of the multiple point-of-view in Public Figures becomes the central point, and one that is questioned throughout. Through Osman's explorations, we are reminded of the dangers of reducing history to a series of icons, and forgetting to ask certain questions.""

~Rob McLennan

"Between the legs of the stone soldiers' continuous dérive, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench, the surrealists a crystal cup, and Osman imagines you. You, the visitor, are the monument. You activate the idea. A true improvisatory device, Public Figures embodies the noblest kind of heat-seeking countermonument.""

~Rachel Zolf, author of Neighbour Procedure