Saturday, April 4, 2009

Making sense of the words

I just returned from the opening of the Josef Strau show at Rowley Kennerk Gallery. On my first walk through of this text based exhibition, curated by Maxwell Graham, I found myself focusing on the textual references shown throughout the gallery. However, following a discussion with Rowley about the works, and the process involved in their development, I was ultimately taken in by the sense of self and review that seems deeply inherent in the work. The lamps throughout appear to be shedding light on both the set of references made to and by Strau, in dialog and as monologues. The works no longer seemed to be as distant and intellectual as I first considered them to be; they felt more analytic and personal. I will definitely go back and question what I am taking in, from Strau and his work. This is for me a fine exhibition, that engages me both visually and intellectually. But it also captures me with its language.

While viewing the show, I found myself thinking back on the current work by Paul Chan. At first, it seemed to me that Strau's current work on view contrasts significantly with Chan's; and yet it is seemingly in parallel with the current show at the Renaissance Society. Words again are the primary referents, this time using texts taken from the Marquis de Sade and translating them into references for a personal vocabulary. The limited pieces included in the exhibit, all intertwined, suggest a different process of self-analysis than the one considered by Strau; Chan's work is both more political and perhaps even transgressive in intent. But it is remote. I have thought off and on about this show since first viewing it. I am still not quite taken in, but I do find that it has stayed with me.

Today I spent some time reading reviews of Littell's The Kindly Ones. A book I have no plan to ever read. I found myself most taken with Ruth Franklin's review -- it mirrors some of what Kakutani stated in the NYTimes, but with perhaps a bit less visceral disgust. Perhaps why I have no interest in the book, but find the reviews fascinating (including the oddest of the lot, by Daniel Mendelsohn in the NY Review of Books, which really is more a discussion of the classical references), is that it is interesting to see what these professional reviewers make of a literary snuff novel.

Ultimately, It strikes me that a lot has been put in words now about how this novel, which focuses on the banality of the Holocaust's executioners, is striving to be something that it is really not. That's why I believe what is most useful is what Franklin ultimately says; the real purpose of this novel is the snuff. Maybe this is what needs to be "well discussed," as opposed to all this attempting to parse Littell's reasons within a political context. Instead, and perhaps much like Dennis Cooper's work, the paraphilia and its implication is really what is most interesting. Personally, I feel there isn't much need to recapitulate the murderer's position. I don't need to be reminded of evil and its representations. But then again, perhaps it is really just about the words with this book.