Homenagem a Hubert Damisch

Text written by Yve-Alain Bois to be read in Hubert Damisch’s funeral. The French theoretician passed away on December 14th, 2017. The ceremony took place on the 20th, at the Crematorium of Père-Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris.Texto escrito por Yve-Alain Bois para ser lido na cerimônia fúnebre de Hubert Damisch. O teórico francês morreu em 14 de dezembro de 2017, e a cerimônia fúnebre ocorreu no dia 20 desse mesmo mês, no crematório do Cemitério Père-Lachaise, em Paris

Tough love

The following text presents the contribution of Yve-Alain Bois to the colloquium “Hubert Damisch, l’art au travail”, a homage to the author of Théorie du nuage organized in Paris by the Institut National d’Histoire d’Art in November 8th and 9th 2013. The report recalls the author’s relationship with Hubert Damisch and Roland Barthes, whose seminars Bois attended to during the early 1970’.O texto a seguir apresenta a contribuição de Yve-Alain Bois ao colóquio “Hubert Damisch, l’art au travail”, organizado em homenagem ao autor de Théorie du nuage, em Paris, pelo Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, nos dias 8 e 9 de novembro de 2013. O relato rememora o convívio de Bois com Hubert Damisch e Roland Barthes, autores cujos seminários ele frequentou no início dos anos 1970

Formalismo de quem?

By way of a meticulous rebbutal of his being insistently “accused” of a Grenberguian formalism, the author retorts his “accusers”, declaring his deep connexions with historical trends of formalism, whose origins go back to Alois Riegl, Russian Formalism and Structuralism – miles away, he remarks, from Greenberg’s idealist search for a subliminatory idea of form. Contrary to the critic’s condemnation of any injuntion of meaning wathsoever in the discussion of an art work, Yve-Alain Bois declares emphatically, throught this article, his vivid interest in its historical signification and his conviction in the embededness of form in a historical matter. Lançando mão de uma refutação meticulosa dos que o “acusam” de um formalismo de tipo greenberguiano, o autor replica a seus “acusadores”, declarando suas conexões profundas a linhagens históricas do formalismo, cujas origens remontam a Alois Riegl, ao formalismo russo e ao estruturalismo – a milhas de distância, ele sublinha, da busca idealista de Greenberg por uma ideia sublimatória de forma. Ao longo do artigo, Yve-Alain Bois declara de modo enfático o mais vivo interesse na significação histórica do trabalho de arte e sua convicção no enraizamento da forma na matéria histórica, contrariamente à condenação greenberguiana de quaisquer injunções do significado nessa discussão

On Forensic Architecture: A Conversation with Eyal Weizman

Yve-Alain Bois, Michel Feher, Hal Foster, and Eyal Weizman discuss “forensic architecture,” the practice of treating common elements of our built environment as entry points through which to interrogate the present. Forensic Architecture is also the name of a research agency established by Weizman to undertake independent investigations in the context of armed conflicts, political struggles, and environmental transformation. Participants discuss cases in which the agency acts on commissions from international prosecutors, investigative journalists, the United Nations, human rights organizations, and environmental-justice and media groups. The discussion of this practice is illustrated by brief examples taken from recent investigations in places such as Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, Gaza, Syria, and Guatemala

A relevância de Klein hoje

Para se aproximar do trabalho de Yves Klein, o autor reproduz alguns argumentos de Theodor Adorno sobre a música de Wagner, formulados em dois momentos - em 1937-1938, sob a experiência do fascismo, e em 1963, com 30 anos de "distância". No primeiro texto, Adorno mostrava, na obra de Wagner, os aspectos que traíam a gestação do fascismo. No segundo reconhecia que, com o novo momento histórico, outras camadas vinham à baila naquela obra; ela havia mudado, e a posição de Adorno em relação a ela tornava-se "ambivalente". Partindo do paralelismo com Wagner, Bois revisita o trabalho de Klein buscando revelar, em seus ardis e encenações, para além da simples adesão aos expedientes da indústria cultural, uma espetacularização do próprio espetáculo, que acaba por esvaziá-lo.In order to approach the work of Yves Klein, the author recalls the arguments of Theodor Adorno in regard to the music of Richard Wagner, presented in two different texts - the first written in 1937-1938, under the experience of fascism, and the other in 1963, with a "distance" of 30 years. In the first text, Adorno highlighted, in the work of Wagner, the aspects that betrayed the birth of fascism. In the second one he recognized that, along with the new historical moment, other layers emerged in Wagner's work; it had changed, and Adorno's position toward it became "ambivalent". Starting with a parallelism with Wagner, Bois reexamines the work of Yves Klein, trying to reveal, in his use of staging and artifice, beyond the mere acceptance of the expedients of the culture industry, a spectacularization of spectacle itself, that ends up by deflating it