The Torque of Thought by Tom Carlson
The dance only aspires toward that which it is, disclosing neither truth nor rule, but rather the persistence of itself as flux and torque... Read More
Cognoscenti In a Room Hung with Pictures by Benjamin K. Rice
The cruelty of an image is that it excites us toward an anticipation that it can’t fulfill. It gives by taking away. Though, when Cotán gives me an image of fruit, he does not take away from me any particular instance of pear or pomegranate—instead, he takes away the whole idea of fruit... Read More
Ossuarius by Eva Bujalka
Strange that the air down here should have more the texture of something living it, breathing it. Strange that the air itself should impress upon the living the sensation of breathing in the grave soil, the soil that is so afflicted with several lifetimes’ humors: black bile and phlegm, the cold... Read More
Saying Celan In Silence by Frank Garrett
After the death of Paul Celan, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commissioned Edmond Jabès to write a memorial work for him. What resulted was a brief essay of sorts entitled, “The Memory of Words: How I Read Paul Celan.” Immediately, within the very first sentence, we confront the conundrum of the written word passing as a... Read More
Dark Chamber by Jimmy Chen
An illustration in Albrecht Dürer's The Painter's Manual (1525) shows a man attempting to master perspective using a grid through which a reclining model is seen. In the background, two adjacent windows, one functioning as a landscape and the other as a still life, act as grids themselves. For unclear reasons, the model's hand hovers... Read More
Fragments from Gnome by Robert Lunday
When you drive, the landscapes slide sharply through the sides of your face. They fill your cheeks, your temples, they build behind the eyes and ears. Soon they’re ripped by the wind or a gawker’s stare from the back of your head, and you’re again in the landscape... Read More
Hot Mess: Breaking the Skin by Rebecca Norton
When observing a figure depicted in a painting, we usually take a few moments to notice how the skin is painted. This informs us of the genre of the painting, the artist’s style, the ideas about the figure, etc... Read More
I Am Not Supposed to Be Here: Birth and Mystical Detection by Nicola Masciandaro
True detection lies in being extra circumspect about birth, life’s originary and seemingly unerasable crime. “If attachment is an evil,” says Cioran, “we must look for its cause in the scandal of birth... Read More
Art, Money, Beauty, Shit, Representation, the Communal by Sam Kriss
In Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, Martin Heidegger attempts to account for and justify the phenomenon of modern art. While maintaining his own somewhat conservative tastes, he claims that modern art possesses autonomous value... Read More