New York times - When words don't fail

I have been through the process of mourning before, but what struck me was that this was a collective state of bereavement and that a whole people could feel as one: the shadow of the lost object falling on desire. Compulsively devouring Le Monde, the New York Times, and La Nacion, pathetically hoping to find some kind of light between the lines, some hidden truth, I remembered Eliot: "The only wisdom we ever hope to acquire is the lesson of humility, because humility is endless." But rather than citations of Eliot's work, what emerges are distorted bits and pieces of memory and desire--as Paul Celan had wanted. More than ever I distrust the idea of a book, of the Book, whatever its interpretations.... Instead, I've become inhabited by fragments, which is both sweet and sour, because fragments, as we know, finally do not make sense.

Carlos Basualdo, chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, recently organized the exhibition "Hello Oiticica: Quasi-cinemas."

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