In Adulthood, It Is Tact That Is Golden, Not Silence*

Fig. 1. Walker Evans - Salón, West Virginia, 1935


'Never discuss the poem you contemplate writing. It's like turning on the outside spigot. It takes all the pressure off the upstairs bathroom.'

Robert Frost

* 'It is tact that is golden, not silence.' (Samuel Butler)

Reprise #6: A Place Between Certainty And Oblivion

Fig. 1. Robert Morris - Bodyspacemotionthings, 1971


'The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been. This distinction is decisive. In front of a photograph, our consciousness does not necessarily take the nostalgic path of memory (how many photographs are outside of individual time), but for every photograph existing in the world, the path of certainty: the Photograph's essence is to ratify what it presents. One day I received from a photographer a picture of myself which I could not remember being taken, for all my efforts; I inspected the tie, the sweater, to discover in what circumstances I had worn them; to no avail. And yet, because it was a photograph I could not deny that I had been there (even if I did not know where). This distinction between certainty and oblivion gave me a kind of vertigo, something of a detective "anguish" (the theme of Blow-Up was not far off); I went on to the photographer's show as to a police investigation, to learn at last what I no longer knew about myself.'

Roland Barthes

Reprise #5: You're Only A Conference Of Organs, Pal

Fig. 1. Tony Oursler - Station, 2002


'We are all haunted houses.'

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Reprise #4: At Nightfall In The Forest Of Philosophy

Fig. 1. Caspar David Friedrich - Evening, 1820-21

'An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.'

Albert Camus

Reprise #3: Build It And They Will (Probably) Muse

Fig. 1. Nike Savvas - Atomic: full of love, full of wonder, 2005


'Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it "creative observation". Creative viewing.'

William S. Burroughs

Reprise #2: But, After We've Smoked Another Silence

Fig. Nan Goldin - Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983

'To love another person you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.'

Quentin Crisp

Reprise #1: Evicting The Soft Embalmer Of The Night

Fig. 1. Gustav Klimt - Danae, 1907-08


'The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.'

Gustav Klimt