Tag Archives: Theory

Kiefer on Art

February 8, 2013

“All of painting, but also Literature, and all that goes with it, is merely a process of going round and round something inexpressible, round a black hole or crater whose centre one cannot penetrate. And those things one seizes on… Continue reading →

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Foucault on Language

February 1, 2013

“At the moment of speaking, I would like to have perceived a nameless voice, long preceding me, leaving me merely to enmesh myself in it, taking up its cadence, and to lodge myself, when no one was looking, in its… Continue reading →

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Barthelme on not knowing

February 1, 2013

“What is magical about the object is that it at once invites and resists interpretation” — from “On Writing” in Not-Knowing by Donald Barthelme. Photograph by Eva Vermandel, from Splinter.

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Cavell on Photography

February 1, 2013

“To say that photographs lie implies that they might tell the truth; but the beauty of their nature is exactly to say nothing, neither to lie nor not to. Then what purpose may be served, or disguised, in attempting to… Continue reading →

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W.J.T. Mitchell on the image

September 16, 2012

If the stakes seem a bit lower in asking what images are today, it is not because they have lost their power over us, and certainly not because their nature is now clearly understood. It is a commonplace of modern… Continue reading →

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Horsfield on Art

May 25, 2012

“Art, whilst it may be many things, may also be this: an accounting to others of the world which we together inhabit, to the end not that we escape history, but that we together may stand face to face with… Continue reading →

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One off: Ariella Azoulay.

May 25, 2012

“My mother wouldn’t allow me to go to the beach on Fridays. That’s the day the Arabs go. “They go with their clothes on,” she muttered. Ever since, I’ve carried around in my head an image of Arabs half-submerged in… Continue reading →

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Meinig on Landscape

January 13, 2012

“Landscape is related to, but not identical with, nature. Nature is a part of every landscape, but is no more than a part of any landscape which has felt the impact of man. In this view landscape is always inclusive… Continue reading →

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Paglen on Black sites, Secrecy, Geography and Visibility

December 28, 2011

Trevor Paglen, the author/photographer/critic and cultural geographer, here gives a lecture at Google’s campus on his work in the book “Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World“. His work is a fascinating and wilfully diverse… Continue reading →

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Badger on painting and photography

December 19, 2011

“A painted portrait by, say, Holbein or Rembrandt, is an extremely complex artefact, part icon, part representation, part symbol, part antique. In viewing a Holbein or a Rembrandt “in the flesh,” so to speak, we are looking both at an… Continue reading →

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