We have only allocated an hour to write this post, so we don’t have time to discuss that infamous memo (we mean here the Nunes memo, not Trump himself)
Given this time-crunch we’re merely going to see how the posts from our allocated two week period from last year (Jan. 23-Feb 5) fit into the 11 chapters of No Philosopher King. Here goes:
Ch. 1: Prologue
- As we said as our first )of six) interactive lecture Our Book to Come (this week, last year) a week ago, we have no idea what Continuous Project has to do with Prometheus – shall we try to find out? (Feb. 3)
Ch. 2: Mourning Diary
- How do these photos of artists who participated in Come Along With Me, taken in their studios and homes, in the late spring and late summer of 2016 take us back to a pre-mourning period? (Jan. 26)
Ch. 3: On Classicism’s Ruins
- How does our comparison of Stuart Sherman’s Amazon book reviews and Photius’ Bibliotheca show the autobiographical, everyday context, via repetition and memory, for summarizing so-called great works of literature? (Jan. 23)
Ch. 4: Moving White Bodies
- If we focus on the disconnect between the quotation and Group Material on democracy, this fit here, right? (Feb. 4)
- Is this the right chapter to include the ending of a post about Adelita Husni-Bey’s two ‘bodily’ video works? (Jan. 31)
We cannot help but connect Lethe and After the Finish Line, via Plato, in thinking that the shift from the individual body (of partisans, Mussolini, Er, athletes) and its suffering and death, is transformed through art into a potent sites for memory, community and life. Again, under the cloud of the illegal immigration orders we are dealing with at the moment, remembering and celebrating the power of the group, the collective and the communal are all the more necessary and pressing.
- Don’t you think that the end of our post on Sarah Lucas and shame (aidos) fits perfectly this chapter on moving away from the marmoreal Classical statue? (Jan. 25)Lucas’ marrows, as ornamental aidoia, are, therefore, a very public statement about the need to renegotiate the terms of shame when engaging with art beyond the limits of the body. Of course melons, light bulbs and toilet-bowls are symbols for sexual organs, but at the same time they are transported (like the marrows of Perceval) by a sculptural mechanism and body in their own right.
Ch. 5: Media/Medea/Medya
- How can language be a place? (Feb. 1)
Ch. 6: Myths and Other Peccadillos
- For a chapter about misogyny and myth, this is perfect, right? (Feb. 5)
Ch. 7: Where Went Ohio
- What was the point of making reference to the iconic Cleveland punk band Rocket from the Tombs in our discussion of Moyra Davey? Were we trying to bring her experience in a Kolkata graveyard and prospective participation in documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel somehow closer to home? (Jan. 24)
- How does an exhibition of Ohio-based artists period not become the center-piece of this whole chapter? (Jan. 26)
Ch. 8: Escape to Athens
- Is our discussion of Moyra Davey’s contribution to the documenta 14 publication South as a State of Mind (‘Walking with Nandita’), in which we transpose ancient monuments onto her experience in a Kolkata graveyard, repeating a form of cultural colonialism that we encountered in Athens and Kassel, in the framework of German classicism? (Jan. 24)
- Should we try to find out more about what happened in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Athens Dialogues? (Jan. 28)
- Can we admit that we didn’t see any of Abounaddara’s work on site at documenta 14, neither in Athens nor Kassel? (Jan. 29)
Ch. 9: On the World
- When we think about the wall, how can we not think of the wall? (Jan. 27)
- How does the memory of seeing Rheim Alkadhi’s work in Brisbane play a role in this project? (Jan. 30)
Ch. 10: Serial Collaborations
- Could our collaboration with Rheim Alkadhi, in preparation for the Brisbane Postclassicisms event be considered a series collaboration? (Jan. 30)
About 50 minutes into writing this, we realized that in last week’s post we failed to discuss five posts from last year, probably because they were written during Trump’s inauguration weekend and so we mentally blocked them out. We’ll have to leave separating them into different chapter for later, but for now, here are some questions:
- Why do we want to have access to a tangible, printed internet? (e.g. a hard-copy of Petra Cortright’s HELL_TREE? (Jan. 18)
- Is there any future for The Suetonius Gallery (Jan. 20), a project that returns to the ancient Roman biographer’s Lives of the Emperors and frames Trump’s outrages in terms of anecdotes about Caligula (Jan. 22), Nero (Jan. 19, Jan. 27 and Feb. 2), and co.?
- Why do we have to keep protesting this shit? (Jan. 21)
Ch. 11: Epilogue
- There is something about Group Material’s display of Carmen Herrera that seems to make this a good post for concluding remark, yes? (Feb. 4)
