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 […]
Pages are cavernous places, white at entrance, black in absorption. Echo. If I’m transformed by language, I am often crouched in footnote or blazing in title. Where in the body do I begin; What’s your deal with burnout, my librarian aka Mr. Minus? After several months of listening to me speak from your shelves, you’ve […]
Ohiya (singing vow): Inkpata Nawaze Naci, Naci, coze May Maya Leci cu wana. Winona: The magic of the night of nights beckons me, beckons me, beckons me; a wonder-world is sheltered ‘neath the trees from grass and shrub and willows low. Come mystic voices, sighs, enchanting breeze from mystic voices, sighs enchanting breeze. The pallid […]
B: People talk of the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt the economy of Europe. But they don’t ! ! mention the African Plan, which enabled Hitler’s hordes at a time when their economies !! were under siege, their stability threatened. Who saved Europe? It was Africa. There is very little talk about that. There is so […]
Notice the care with which [Edmonia] Lewis sculpted their [Minnehaha, from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha (1855), and the arrow maker – Minnehaha’s father] deer-hide moccasins and perhaps paid homage to her two aunts, who made and sold moccasins in her ancestral Anishinaabeg homeland. – America Meredith, ‘In Focus: Edmonia Lewis: The Old Arrow […]