William Faulkner once allowed himself to be interviewed on the radio during a University of Virginia football game, and was introduced as a winner of the Mobil Prize. – David Markson, Vanishing Point (2004). I’m sitting in a reading room at the Thompson Library at this Ohio State University where I teach. Surreptitiously speaking these […]
We could say that Trumpism is a sort of revenge of all against all. The political project that Trump has promised to implement has the characteristics of revenge, and this revenge has many targets: retribution against the Democrats who tried to hinder his triumph, but also—and above all—revenge against those who endanger the purity of […]
Richard Finlay Fletcher: Okay, so welcome to minus plato? I just thought you could briefly introduce yourself and then tell us a little bit about your relationship with documenta 14. Fil Ieropoulos: My name is Fil Ieropoulos. I live and work in Athens. I am an artist and filmmaker and researcher as well. My relationship […]
Dear David, How are you doing? I thought of you today as I was reading an essay by Tom Leonard. It’s called ‘Beckett and Graham’, and I can’t remember where I came across it, but I think it was something in James Kelman and I thought about you because of you poetry path in, both […]
Freedom or principle? That’s the question on my mind right now, following the news that the next Artistic Director of Documenta, Documenta 16, that’ll take place in 2027, will be Naomi Beckwith. This announcement comes with quite a lot of painful feelings. On one level, it’s so exciting that a Black woman, an American curator, […]
This is Richard Finlay Fletcher and you were just reading/listening to Lawrence Abu Hamdan in a lecture that he gave in 2017 called Bird Watching. I shared a selection of the lecture, the part that was focused on the Syrian prison of Saydnaya, a prison that today (December 9th, 2024), with the fleeing of President […]
“Order prevails in Warsaw!” “Order prevails in Paris!” “Order prevails in Berlin!” The revolution does not develop evenly of its own volition, in a clear field of battle, according to a cunning plan devised by clever “strategists.” Do you understand? Because of the contradiction in the early stages of the revolutionary process between the task […]
So, is Minus Plato really back? Yes and no. For those of you who have never heard of Minus Plato before, let me just give you a recap of what it was. My name is Richard Finlay Fletcher and I created the blog, platform, and persona of Minus Plato back in 2012. At that time, […]
I have spent so long over the last few months writing in another voice that I wanted to make sure as Minus Plato came to an end (the last post will be this Wednesday on May 4th) that I took a moment to reflect as myself – Richard Fletcher – on what these ten years […]
On September 17th, 2017, the last day of documenta 14, I wrote a Minus Plato post called ‘Exit through the Trojan Horse’. Today’s post – one of a handful left before Minus Plato ends on May 4th, 2022 – borrows the same title as part of a collaboration with documenta 14 artist Daniel García Andújar […]