The Zen Commandments (Gerhard Richter)

Three Sisters, 1965

Forest Piece, 1965

Deer II, 1966

Shadow Picture, 1968

Sternbild Constellation, 1970

180 Colours, 1971

Three Candles, 1982

Apples, 1984

Dead, 1988

Tulips, 1995

Musique Du Jour: Farewell to Philosophy, Gavin Bryars

Aesthetics, Year Zero

Brett Whiteley - Self Portrait in the Studio, 1976


There is no art without eyes that see it as art.

Jacques Rancière

Musique Du Jour: Blue Honey, Pop Levi

Having Left Las Vegas

Robert Delaunay - Joie de vivre, 1930

Musique Du Jour: Colours, Hot Chip

The Tenth Gate

Salvador Dalí - Illumined Pleasures, 1929

Musique Du Jour: White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane

Nine Gates

Dale Frank - a selection from the Transient Ischaemic Attack Painting series, 2005

Musique Du Jour: Spontaneous Sound, Christopher Tree

The Fairest Corpses Of All

Vanessa Beecroft - VB 43.005.te., 200o

This place that Proust slowly, anxiously comes to occupy anew every time he awakens: from that place, as soon as my eyes are open, I can no longer escape. Not that I am nailed down by it, since after all I can not only move, shift, but I can also move it, shift it, change its place. The only thing is this: I cannot move without it. I cannot leave it here where it is, so that I, myself, may go elsewhere; I can hide in the morning under the covers, make myself as small as possible, I can even let myself melt under the sun at the beach - it will always be there. Where I am. It is here, irreparably: it is never elsewhere. My body, it's the opposite of a utopia: that which is never under different skies. It is the absolute place, the little fragment of space where I am, literally, embodied [faire corps].

And what if by chance I lived with it, in a kind of worn familiarity, as with a shadow, or as with those everyday things that ultimately I no longer see, that life had grayed out, like those chimneys, those roofs that line the sky every night in front of my window? Still, every morning: same presence, same wounds. In front of my eyes the same unavoidable images are drawn, imposed by the mirror: thin face, slouching shoulders, myopic gaze, no more hair - not handsome at all. And it is in this ugly shell of my head, in this cage I do not like, that I will have to reveal myself and walk around; through this grill I must speak, look and be looked at; under this skin I will have to rot.

My body: it is the place without recourse to which I am condemned. And actually I think it is against this body (as if to erase it) that all these utopias have come into being. The prestige of utopia - to what does utopia owe its beauty, its marvel? Utopia is a place outside of all places, but it is a place where I will have a body without body, a body that will be beautiful, limpid, transparent, luminous, speedy, colossal in its power, infinite in its duration. Untethered, invisible, protected - always transfigured. It may very well be that the first utopia, the one most deeply rooted in the hearts of men, is precisely the utopia of an incorporeal body.

Michel Foucault

Musique Du Jour: Model, Alexander Balanescu Quartet (Kraftwerk)

Gentlemen Prefer Bondage

Pierre et Gilles - Nina Hagen, 1993

Musique Du Jour: Venus in Furs, The Velvet Underground

When White Was The New Black

Adolphe Gottlieb - Man Looking at Woman, 1949

Musique Du Jour: Play That Funky Music, White Boy, Sly and the Family Stone

Kiss My Art

Constantin Brancusi - The Kiss, 1907

Musique Du Jour: The Kiss, Michael Nyman

From My Notebook

From My Notebook

From My Notebook

From My Notebook