fragilekeys

The question of an artwork that evokes “all worldly knowledge,” the theme of the 2013 Venice Biennale, initially sends us in search of one as encompassing as possible, able to embrace the multitude of knowledges and the multitude of worlds in which all these knowledges occur. Skeptical of this totalizing possibility, indeed shipwrecked against the very idea of it, in a second attempt we’d go in the opposite direction, in search of something which evoked the “non-all,” the unrepresentable, the Real, or which addressed the inconsistency of every established knowledge, the impossibility of coherent discourse. However, approaching knowledge through the negative, we find only a reversal of the initial desire for positivity and absoluteness. Our confidence broken in both directions—by the genuine futility of knowledge and by the sham utility of non-knowledge—, we are forced to go in search of an artwork that would express only this brokenness, an artwork that would embody our despair at knowledge, positive or negative, and at its abuse of power in this world.

Mark Manders’ “Short Sad Thoughts” embraces this despair with simplicity. It consists of two unobtrusive copper wires in the shape of down-ward facing, open-ended parabolas, each suspended on the wall by a nail. Only 22 cm by 3 cm, they are barely visible among the other huge sculptures in the Dutch exhibit. This serves as a metaphor for the impasse confronting humble thinking in a world sick with cravings for effective, elegant, assured knowledge-constructions: even if it is more sincere, more honest than them, a broken thought will always be dwarfed by the countless towering rants surrounding it—and so further broken. As for the composition of the work, the wires appear as if they are being pulled to the ground by the massive force of gravity, but in fact the artist himself bent them “with great effort.” This serves as a metaphor for the work of the thinker, rendered “invisible” by the stomachs of nature, language, and culture: no matter how much he puts into his work, no one will ever be able to see, or even approach, the real animating nexus of it. By the end, it will have been utterly distorted by the society confronting it, dissolved into the matter it was obliged to patiently work. Each thinker circles around a black hole that consumes him. His light drowns in an abyss which leaves no evidence of “him,” but only the accidents of a development without cause and without place. Such is the case with these copper wires: they could have been found in a scrap yard; anyone could have made them, even a machine. Anyone could have hung them there and anyone could take them down—but no matter: lacking all sales appeal, no one is even looking… Continue reading →

How does one prove the truth of a thing? By bringing it immediately forth, immediately– This is what art, which is love, whatever its subject, must strive to do. Continue reading →

We are often inclined to believe that works which express the most profound ideas are those which will last the longest. But who judges the general profundity, and how is it determined? For to judge the profundity of an idea implies, at least, that the work has in some way been understood. Only from this basis of can we judge a work’s profundity and evaluate how it will stand the test of time. But does man* really cherish most that which he best understands, and can then judge? Or is there something else which holds our attention first?

If we look into what holds and has held man’s attention over the centuries, I believe we will find a different criteria, more encompassing and mysterious than understanding. This more “primordial” criteria was once taught to us through religion, and then by art. This criteria is to be found, I believe, in the education of our deepest feelings. What lasts is what teaches us to feel. It is also, therefore, that which is most open, itself, to feeling. What lasts is that which is most open to being touched. That which is most vulnerable, remains. Continue reading →