"[There] is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior or Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; that the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else will be found. This can progress to be a typical pathological megalomania, or there may be minor traces of it in the idea that one’s time “has not yet come.” The one situation dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatsoever. There is a terrific fear of being pinned down, or entering space and time completely, and of being the one human being that one is." Marie Louise von Franz (Interviews with Susan Wagner ) "But the … [Read more...]

"He thought of men as fallen, and likely to fall further if they did not defend the walls of civility against the armies of Dulness. He believed (and this is a doctrine valuable to satire) that moral was reflected in linguistic decay; hence his fanatical interest in the inanities of polite conversation and in slang..." Frank Kermode on Jonathan Swift (New Statesman 2012) "...I also had noted that psychopaths have difficulty understanding the emotional content of words that add color and interest to communication. " Robert D. Hare (Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, 1999) "The death drive and the repetition that it installs in the subject follow a … [Read more...]

"The culture in which we live is perhaps the most claustrophobic that has ever existed; in the culture of globalisation, as in Bosch’s hell, there is no glimpse of an elsewhere or an otherwise.” John Berger (Portraits) "Painting's memory nests two supports within each other, since if perspective is the support of imaging, the chessboard, as Hubert Damisch has shown us, is the support of imaging." Rosalind Krauss (Under Blue Cup) "The destruction of the past, or rather of the social mechanisms that link one’s contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phe- nomena of the late twentieth century. Most young men and women at the … [Read more...]

"So (Max) Raphael’s answer to Marx’s problem — why is art enduringly moving even though it merely reflects its social context? — is to say that art doesn’t merely reflect its social context. It does reflect it, because the artist’s material, style, the things they want to represent, even the way they see, are historically conditioned; but it doesn’t merely reflect it, because the transformed material speaks of something deeper and more voluntary. It speaks of humanity’s ability to make its own world, to become the subject and not merely the victim of history." Robert Minto (Culture Matters, January 2017 A smuggling operation: John Berger's theory of art) “A man’s features, the bone … [Read more...]

"The word ‘freedom’ resonates so widely within the common-sense understanding of Americans that it becomes ‘a button that elites can press to open the door to the masses’ to justify almost anything. Thus could Bush retrospectively justify the Iraq war. Gramsci therefore concluded that political questions become ‘insoluble’ when ‘disguised as cultural ones’." David Harvey (A Brief History of Neoliberalism) "The centralization of power, even more marked than the concentration of capital, reinforces the interpenetration of economic and political power. The “traditional” ideology of capitalism placed the emphasis on the virtues of property in general, particularly small property—in reality … [Read more...]

"The rose is without why; she blossoms because she blossoms. She pays no attention to herself, does not ask if anyone sees her." Angelus Silesius "I never had a memory for myself, but always for others." Masha Ivashintsova "What you didn't see, don't say...having seen keep quiet." Solon (Apophthegmata) "The capitalistic order produces modes of human relations even in their unconscious representations..." Felix Guattari (in conversation) There is a collective regression to contemporary thinking. Or maybe it is the loss of thinking itself. But overlaying this can be seen a collection of resentments and fears, of desires and identifications with power and aggression. And … [Read more...]

"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.” Wittgenstein (Tractatus) “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few” Ecclesiastes 5:2 "The criteria distinguishing history from poetics involved the modes of representation, which (if we might exaggerate somewhat) were intended to articulate either being or appearance. " Reinhart Koselleck (Futures Past; On the Semantics of Historical Time) “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” Daniel Boorstin Many years ago I was reading a lot of … [Read more...]

"In theory, “affirmation” refers to every discourse, such as positivism, that silences the negative, the dark, the inassimilable, or the contradictory nature of the real. In practice, “affirmation” designates reconciliation with the world as it is, submission to so-called reality, moral resignation, political defeatism, and approval of the status quo in general." Theirry De Duve (Aesthetics at Large: chapter 7 Resisting Adorno, Revamping Kant) "...let’s do ugly non-art pictures, let’s not be good. Let’s not learn from others. No talent is the talent." Edith Schloss (Letter to Jean-Michael Basquiat) "I want to be a machine." Andy Warhol What art means, what that word means, is a … [Read more...]