A Life in Theory: Sylvre Lotringer

by Joan Waltemath

Rail: We first met at some point in the seventies when you had already started publishing. I have some great memories of those early Semiotext(e) parties. What was your impetus in getting the magazine off the ground? Lotringer: I didnt get Semiotext(e) off the ground, its Semiotext(e) that got me off mine. I didnt realize it at first, but I was looking for a way out of academia. The magazine became the ticket. y education was a casualty of the war, you see. I got my !h.". as a way of postponing the draft. #lgeria was our $ietnam, and I wasnt e%actly keen on being sent there. I already was in the &tates when the peace was finally signed in '()* and I decided to move around the world, picking up teaching +obs here and there. I spent ay ), in &ydney, #ustralia, so I finally arrived in -ew .ork in '(/0 hoping to catch up with the student rebellion at 1olumbia. 2ittle did I know, it was already business as usual. &o after a while I thought, this isnt e%actly what I want to do with my life . The best I could do was create, with some young academics, a magazine claiming to found a 3materialist4 semiotics. &emiotics, the science of signs in society, had been established on a linguistic model, instead of non5verbal signs, as it should have been. The answer to our 6uery was simpler than I thought7 I eventually turned to the visual arts. It took me two or three years before I got the magazine off the academic ground and gradually moved it towards the art world. I was lucky enough to hit the art world in the mid5/8s, when it was still doing art, not business. #t that time, artists had a life, not +ust a career. &ome of them got interested in our pro+ect, and together we did the first issue, 3&chizo51ulture,4 that really put us on the map. Rail: Wasnt 3&chizo51ulture4 a big conference first? Lotringer: .es, we staged it at 1olumbia in '(/9, and it turned out to be some kind of landmark. :or the first time, ma+or #merican artists like ;ohn 1age and William <urroughs met :rench post5structuralist thinkers ichel :oucault, =illes "eleuze, :eli% =uattari, and ;ean5:rancois 2yotard> they were mostly unknown here until then e%cept for :oucault. The magazine issue that came out of that time was about art and madness, trying to outplay the madness of capitalism by going further into it. This is what weve been doing ever since, first with the magazine, then with the book series called 3:oreign #gents4?for a long time known as 3the little black books.4@ ore secretly, 3&chizo51ulture4 was about living in -ew .ork, in which I saw :rench theorys wildest e%trapolations realized, or at least mine. <eing in -ew .ork until the early ,8s was like living in theory, madness included. 3&chizo5 1ulture4 was published in '(/, when the three5day 3-ova 1onvention4 celebrating William <urroughs was spreading all over 3downtown.4 It was the last e%travaganza of the #merican counter5culture we got involved with, because there never was one after that. Rail: When did it all change for you? Lotringer: 3:rench theory4 started catching on and it became something else. <ut everything else was changing anyway. We didnt realize it yet, and en+oyed the ride, the club scene, graffiti, acid rock, neo5e%pressionist painting, then the Aast $illage lifestyle. #ctually thats when business started kicking in7 real5estate, stock5market, art5market. It is +ust around that time that :rench theory too became a speculation and lost touch with its initial impulse. It was all the more ironical when you contrast it with what other artists were doing at the time. Bver the last thirteen years I have done interviews with all those who

collaborated with "avid Wo+narowicz ?Ciki &mith, <ill Dice, 1arlo c1ormick, etc.@ and the book is +ust coming out with Semiotext(e) this fall. It perfectly captures this moment in time when the Aast $illage started turning ugly, the media moved in, #I"& went on a rampage, and bigots tried to silence free5thinking. 2ike artists of the previous generation, "avid distrusted 3intellectuals4 for all the wrong reasons, and yet these became truer as 3:rench Theory4 became the rage. #lthough he had never read it, he was much closer to what we had intended to do with it than those who tried to appropriate it. "avid was political in everything he did, even if he didnt use the word. Through these collaborations, it is his relation to the world that becomes visible, not +ust an individuals career. David Wojnarowicz: A definitive history of five or six years on the lower east side shows what a gifted artist can do when challenged to rise to the event. "avid responded with the violence of clarity to the hypocrisy, intolerance and negation of life that he could see creeping everywhere. Ee didnt read the theory> he reinvented it, and many other things in the process. Rail: What happened to the magazine after your initial encounter with the art world? Lotringer: We published a number of issues on sub+ectivity ?3Ago traps4@> on 3-ietzsches Deturn4> on 3#nti5Bedipus4> on 3=eorges <ataille4, etc. We occasionally put in some art in the magazine and, surprise, artists started showing up offering their help. I told them we didnt deserve so much attention, but they knew better, of course. &o we immediately enlarged the format to give them room to grow and make the magazine more visual. The group, mostly young artists, some very well5known by now, was rather disparate, painters, photographers, filmmakers, rock impresarios, but we all agreed that nothing would be 3artistic4 and second5hand, only first5hand material, incl din! theory. -o introduction or commentary ?academics always eat their food pre5digested@ but original te%ts and interviews, getting ideas from the horses mouth. We used pop artifacts not high culture, pictures not artworks ?painting was passF, photography hadnt been promoted yet@, collages and no e%planation. The magazine was made of displaced visual cues bouncing against untutored te%ts. We could treat our readers like adults, and have fun at the same time. It was up to them to get the hints, make their connections, think for themselves. That was food for thought unadulterated. Thinking never happens if you get it on a plate. Rail: Eaving lived here for some years, Ive become aware that there is only a brief moment when a constellation of people can come together and make something possible. Then you get the absorption. .ou have to break away, and then reconfigure. $ery much like you describe your e%perience with Semiotext(e). .ou realize that once everybody grabs on, its time to step away. Lotringer: 3&chizo51ulture4 sold out, *,888 copies in three weeks, and it is true that we could easily have become an art magazine, got lush gallery ads and sunk under them, as happens to most magazines these days. We had already announced the publication of 3&chizo51ulture II,4 but I decided that we wouldnt. We had no money to start with and produced issues on the cheap for a few years ?but with high concept@, getting some deals here and there to keep it going. <ut getting too close to the art world would have been the kiss of death. Bur strategy must have been right because we remained a Tro+an horse ever after, a foreign element even to our friends. We kept inhabiting the cracks between the art world, the radical world and academia, as we kept hovering between Aurope and the Gnited &tates, bringing out new material that artists, activists and young intellectuals could work with, and a certain way of looking at them. We kept building bridges and each time took them down with us. We kept changing focus deliberately, starting from scratch with each issue, changing teams as well on occasion. We used different visual and conceptual strategies. :or the issue on Italian terrorism ?3#utonomia,4 '(,8@, for instance, we stole the lay5out of a IT manual in biology to give it

a safe, clinical look> for the 3!olyse%uality4 issue ?'(,'@, we chose hard5to5read computer caps to cool off the contents> we also displayed media images of disaster instead of se%. :or 3The =erman issue4 ?'(,0@, we ran a wall of pictures, from Wall &treet to the <erlin Wall, in the middle of the page with Aast and West changing sides all the time. Aach issue took years to make, but they still had to come out ahead of time. The idea was7 never give people what they want, or theyll hate you for it. In -ew .ork, you learn that lesson pretty fast. We managed to lose readers that way, but constantly got new ones as well. &ome are still around, and I guess younger ones too. 2ately we have been reshaping things with Eedi Al Colti, our new editor and designer, starting a new series called the 3Eistory of the !resent4, and introducing more te%ts on gay male se% and culture, some pretty daring te%ts, like the classic Tony "uvert "ood Sex #ll strated that <ruce <enderson is translating, and the stunning Jo rnal of an #nnocent which will be out ne%t year. This thing has been going on one way or another for some thirty5two yearsHcan you believe it? Thats what happens when you e%pect something to die any time, and even would welcome the thought ?its a lot of work@. <ut it keeps going and changing as we all do. Rail: #s I remember it too, from the time, yours was really the first introduction of the :rench post5structuralist philosophers to the scene in -ew .ork. It had an incredible impact for almost ten years in changing the way people were writing and thinking about art. Lotringer: 2ook, I didnt want it to be 3:rench Theory,4 I wanted the magazine to be #merican. Its all a big misunderstanding. y purpose wasnt to introduce :rench thought to #merica, but to get #merica thinking along those lines .$ %he idea was that it wo ld !et absorbed in the c lt re and sed to fi! re o t what ca&italism is abo t' not ()rench intelli!ence'* or j st art for that matter. Artists need to nderstand the world they live in' too' in order to ma+e art. Americans don,t +now what ca&italism is' they don,t have the distance. %hey call it reality and see it on television. -o wonder that American radicals' mostly academics' are still dreamin! with %oni -e!ri that one day we will !o thro !h (to the other side.* (# &refer .aolo /irno,s $"rammar of the 0 ltit de' less romantic, but more substantial@. Theres no 3other side4 to capitalism, it is everywhere. 1ut one tentacle from the monster and others grow faster on other limbs. 1apitalism is crawling inside of us all too, the best and the worst, and we have to keep pushing its creative energy in other directions, dodging the reduction to commerce and self5interest. I used to organize lectures at the &orbonne in the late fifties, already bringing up the new ideas to my fellow :rench students7 1laude 2evi5&trauss, Doland <arthes, ;ulia Cristeva, etc. Theory in :rance in the late )8s and /8s was some kind of an artwork, a conceptual creation in its own right. <ut it didnt come out of the blue> in fact it involved a lot of people, a well5trained intelligentsia reaching way back. The elite :rench academic system hadnt yet broken down, swallowed by a media culture made in the G&#. Thats 3#merican Theory4 in :rance for you. 2ike art, theory needs a nurturing conte%t, and the need for it. -ot +ust a desire to be included. :rench intellectuals reacted creatively to the eruption of consumerism in :rance. They tried to stop it short in I), and failing that +umped onto the saddle, trying to go places with it intellectually, eager to see where it would take them. It was a bumpy ride, but suddenly it was as if society was opening up in front of our very eyes, and we 6uickly got ourselves the proper conceptual tools to poke at it. We finally overrode a ar%ism that had gone on automatic, but kept ar% by the hand. There was a huge momentum at the time, say between '()9 and '(//, and a sense of urgency, thinking all this through. The language of 3theory4 may sound baro6ue at times to foreign ears, but it was +ust a short5hand to very long ideas. 1oncepts were meant to open society up like a surgeons knife, and we knew that the patient could well be dying any second. 2ook at what happened to the art world in +ust a few years. We were supposed to have all these great conceptual knives lying around, crying to be used ?the death of the author,

etc.@ and what did everyone do with themHcut themselves a piece of the cake. &o youre right7 theory had an incredible impact for almost ten years and changed the way artists and critics dealt with art. They all became dealers. Rail: Eow did you anticipate theory would be received? Lotringer: I didnt want people to gargle on hard theories, I e%pected them to turn thinking the other way in order to realize who they really were, and what could be done in a world thats fast running away from us. 1apitalism and technology never sleep. They are not wasting any time ransacking the entire planet, merely giving us a few toys to keep us busy. #t no other period in history have we needed ideas more than we do right now. &o it is not +ust a matter of people catching on with e%citing ideas for ten years and then moving to the ne%t hot thing. Gnlike many :rench theorists themselves, I never minded living with contradictions, sleeping with the enemy as we all do here. :oucault, <audrillard, "eleuze, one fight. They keep overlapping in so many ways, raising interesting 6uestions that way too. They +ust provide different takes on the same phenomenon, -ietzschean perspectivism. We share the same monster, and it goes unimpeded in every possible direction, so why not confront it from different sides? I dont have to forget anything, let alone )or!et )o ca lt ?a great book all the same@ or substitute 3competing4 theories, ? ulticulturalism, =ay studies, etc.@ for an update. Theory is all genders and all cultures at the same time. 2ike !rousts ways, everything communicates if you follow it through long enough. The 3other side4 is like a Jbius stripHyou have to keep on the same track and it takes you places. Were on it for the long haul or not at all, changing things along the way to keep on target. &hort5attention span doesnt lead one anywhere, leap5froggingHso to speakH+ust means repeating the same mistakes. #s Doland <arthes used to say, if you dont read the same book twice, youll keep reading it everywhere. Its like the media, always showing the same image at full speed so people dont get bored, or have the time to think ?its the same thing@. <oredom is the most important concept there is in #merica. I tried to show it in my book, 1verex&osed: .ervertin! .erversions ?it is now being republished by Semiotext(e) with ma+or additions@. It is not +ust true for se%, or se%ual deviants ?they are sub+ected to a 3boredom therapy4 meant to get them rid of their desires@. !eople keep running away from their lives in the hope of getting one someday. There is no 3other side.4 Eistory is written in the present tense, however imperfect, and thats all there is. Ideas always need to be engaged somewhere in order to e%ist at all. Avery history is a history of the present. .ou dont know what it is made of beforehand. .ou dont even know what you are capable of before you do something. .ou have to discover it when you are on the way. Thats what I e%pected art to be too, and it is no different at heart from politics. "avid Wo+narowicz discovered that thin line in the midst of it all and +ust went for it. The simplest ideas are the hardest to come by. Rail: .ou cant look for them, you have to see where you are going. Lotringer: Thats what we did in the mid5,8s. It 6uickly became too good to be good. We had it all made, and who wants it? Its always someone else tripping on you. We started distancing ourselves from this sudden embrace pretty early on, b t not from theory. We began looking instead for an 3#merican Theory4 that would be in the making, unaware. We found it in the first person female narrative. -arratives, in the Gnited &tates, are usually hopelessly confessional ?we started dealing with that very early on with the 3Ago Traps4 issue@. 1hris Craus created the new 3-ative #gents4 series to investigate sub+ectivity that wasnt turned inward ?theres nothing there but trouble@, rather turned outward and capable of providing a vision of the world as it is, not as it is supposed to be. It was a snub at those who love thinking to be outlandish and 3incomprehensible4 in order to feel legitimate. What the e%istence of 3-ative #gents4 really meant is that thinking can be found everywhere, not

+ust in theory books. It is in the eye ?I@ of the beholder and you have to keep it focused. I dreamt that #merican culture was open5ended, e%perimental, hand5to5mouth, 3pragmatic.4 I wanted philosophy to be that way. I didnt realize that there was an underside, more mindless and cynical. !hilosophy was used pragmatically, but not the way I e%pected it to be. -ot in order to think things through, only to improve ones status, boost ones ego, feed the lingering anguish of being left behind, of not being part of the 3in5group.4 It was not +ust going back to school, but !oin! to hi!h school. Averybody started getting crazy about the theory. &ome artists even stopped making art, thinking they should have read it all, from :erdinand de &aussure to "errida, before picking up the brush again. Bthers, more casual, displayed theory on their +ackets and kept it there until they changed their clothes. Rail: There has to be a desire to look beyond the surface layer. Lotringer: I agree, but desires are not innate, they come from somewhere. They can also be fabricated like everything else. Wanting to be the first to grab something, or the first to +unk it, whatever that is, theory included, is a powerful desire too, but it has nothing to do with thinking. #nd its still going on today, of course, +ust getting a little thin at the elbow, like everything else. #t the time theory took off in -ew .ork, in the early ,8s, a new wave of young artists were coming onto the scene and it became pretty crowded there. What was their desire? It was to be recognized, to belong somewhere. They desired to peg their fate on some glamorous Ee5 ale philosopher, :oucault, <audrillard, anyone really that could fit the +ob. #nd they wanted to get a pre5cooked artistic identity to boot. They didnt even have to read the entire book for that, only the title. With Sim lation' the first book by <audrillard that we published in '(,*, as part of the new 3:oreign #gents4 series, they thought they had found The an. Bvernight they became bona fide simulationists and started making claims on <audrillard. <eware of unwanted disciples, -ietzsche warned. Theres always a catch to instant adulation. 2ook, it was their problem, not mine. We also published two other books in the new 3:oreign #gents4 series that year, 1n the 2ine by "eleuze and =uattari and . re War by $irilio. With the three of them, not +ust one, we managed to map out the entire decade. $irilio caught on because people thought he was an advocate of technology, which was coming strongly to the fore. #ctually $irilio was trying to size up the threat. #nd we had to wait for ten more years ?that made twenty@ before people started paying attention to "eleuze, and sub+ecting him to the same treatment. .ou always end up paying for attention. .ou may lose your sense of purpose, and what else is there? Its never worth going out of your way to get it. Rail: Today, when I was looking at your books again, specifically the last two you published, %he 3ons&iracy of Art by <audrillard, and your dialogue with !aul $irilio in %he Accident of Art' I was thinking about your descriptions and reflections on the art world, and I could see art disappear in the face of business. Lotringer: &ure, and it may even already have, so we are fast losing the sense of what it was capable of. #rt wasnt really meant to be adhered to so eagerly by everybody. :or a long time there was a sense that art was resisting something7 tradition, accepted ideas, ingrained pre+udices. It was a fight to impose another vision of what art could be. The audience had to ad+ust as best it could and try to make sense of it all. #ndy Warhol was iconoclastic when he started calling art his famous <rillo <o%es. -ow art has become sacred in the most vapid way. #nything a bit new is instantly drowned under inflated praises or turgid curatorial language, which is whats left of theory. Theres a creepy feeling about it all, as if there was some kind of collusion going on, everybody trying too hard to be ecstatic about art. #s if everyone was on !rozac, worrying that their supply might suddenly run dry. Its euphoria on the verge of a nervous breakdown. -o one seems to believe their eyes that it could be so fucking good, artists +umping from plane to plane for the ne%t <iennale in <ulgaria, and the art market in &ingapore. Averyone feels like they are a fake, and the entire situation is. Its collective forgery, the ultimate artwork. Thats the kind of

3conspiracy4 <audrillard was talking about in his book7 art turning corporate, but still claiming its e%ception. Im not really complaining about that. #ctually Im not complaining at all. This is not my business if art is wallowing in greed and hype. ;ack &mith used to say that what is done with the art is what gives it meaning. I dont know if art should have a meaning at all, but now it definitely has one. 1ave people had their art, and so did painters in the Kuatrocento. #ll I can say is that we have the art that we deserve. #nd if it is not possible to get it in any other way, then we have the art that is not possible. Rail: If business is the envelope that art is reflecting, is the role of the individual voice obsolete? Lotringer: -o one can afford to be that special anymore. Individual voices are business too. They are now custom5made and mass5produced. The system needs 3individuals4 to speak in its own voice and these kind of voices can be heard everywhere, picking up the cues. We live in a ventrilo6uist culture, but we dont know anymore whose belly it is all coming from, whos speaking, or whether there is someone on the line. #nd it is true across the board. Avery barrier that used to protect singular voices or discrete activities is now breaking down. #rt now can be found everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The idea has lost its luster ?if everything is art, what is art?@ and yet it is more glamorous now than it has ever been .We cant invent something that doesnt correspond in some way to the kind of society that were stuck with, for better and for worse. #nd sometimes the worst is the better because at least we can identify it for what it is turning into. Decently 3ali! la' the 2# art magazine, flippantly organized weekends teaching artists how to go about their careers and make the right contacts. #rt programs are starting to offer classes in that direction. This is healthy in some sick way. If art is turned into a business, at least we know what art can be. <ecause its becoming more and more difficult nowadays to differentiate art from what it is not. #nd there may be a reason for that7 art isnt that different anymore from the rest, and thats why young artists are flocking to art schools like never before7 +ust to make sure that what they do will still be identified as art. #s theres less and less difference in the art itself, art institutions and the networks that support it have become the only valid criteria for art to be acknowledged as art. 2ast ;uly an e%hibition was held in Israel called "oods to Declare40)A #nternational. The staff from fifteen art schools internationally participated. #nd =eneral otors Dobert 2utz declared7 3I see us as being in the art business. #rt, entertainment, and mobile sculpture, which coincidentally, happens to provide transportation.4 Ceeping in mind the responsibilities their graduate students would have to take in the world ?it has become one with the art world@ the organizers commented7 31orporate recruiters are hiring recent :#s from distinguished schools, not to make art, but to be thinkers, innovators and change agents in a new creative economy.4 # similar thing happened to theory in :rance at the end of the /8s when the 3-ew !hilosophers4 ?<ernard5Eenry 2evy, #lain =lucksmann, etc.@ were being hailed by the :rench press as the ne%t new thing. "eleuze saw in it the beginning of a new era, a return to the idea of an author, simplistic dualisms, big empty concepts. It was literary or philosophical marketing. :rom now on, he wrote in 3#bout the -ew !hilosophers and a more general problem4 ?in %wo 5e!imes of 0adness, &emiote%t?e@, 088)@ it wouldnt be necessary to read the books themselves, only arrange for articles in the press, interviews, conferences, radio and T$ programs, media controversies to draw public attention, etc. #ll this, he added ironically, 3doesnt prevent it from being a profound modernism, an analysis that perfectly fits the landscape and the marketL4 While theorists like Doland <arthes were advocating 3the death of the author,4 the media simply rushed in to occupy the place and set up authors to their liking, by the same token establishing itself as an arbiter of thinking. "eleuze called this7 %he 6orror. What happened then is for everyone to see7 it was the end of 3:rench Theory4 in :rance as an intellectual movement. # similar horror is happening to contemporary art. #rt is not made by artists anymore, but by gallerists,

reviewers, interviewers, gossip columns, orchestrated by rich collectors and backed both by powerful banks and enterprising art institutions with global reach. In this state of induced weightlessness art institutions have increasingly stepped in to substitute their own criteria of +udgment based on pedigree ?the kind of art school attended@, fame ?the artists name@, promotional potential ?reviews, catalogues@, supply and demand ?available collectors@, etc. to create an 3artistic product4 that is going to be peddled around from group shows to solo shows to mid5career shows and biennales all over the world, each time adding in value and 3recognition.4 It all started in the ,8s with museums curators usurping the role of the artist and turning e%hibits into a creation in their own right. #nd why not? 3!ostmodernist4 artists were claiming that their art didnt belong to them, but to their viewers, merely obscuring their work to make sure that it resisted the first cursory look. -ow artists are turning into curators of their own works, or rather managers of their own brand5name. The name5of5 the5author ?of any gender@ has replaced the name5of5the5father famously coined by ;ac6ues 2acan. #rtists now can claim the paternity of their own artistic identity in partnership with the media5machine that manages their career to everyones satisfaction. -o wonder art is losing its artistic identity and can be found at work everywhere, engulfed by advertisement, performing in politics, entertained by entertainment. #rt 3innovators and change agents4 are now being sent to the outer world the way sociologists used to be sent to factories with the mission of easing boss5worker tensions and making the workers unbearable life more tolerable. <ut they will hardly be the only ones to be working at it, the entire society is geared to that, from Eollywood to the entertainment and advertising industries, not to mention politicians polishing their act at the e%pense of politics, all making art for the 3new creative economy,4 pushing products on happy consumers, or better yet7 turning consumers themselves into a product, satisfying their desires even before they begin to surface in what still passes for collective consciousness. Rail: "o you think that art works today pale in relationship to the past? Lotringer: -o, I dont mean that at all. I could as easily say the contrary. #mong all the works that are produced everyday and simultaneously e%hibited in all the art venues available worldwide, it could even be that there is better art than ever e%isted before. <ut this is not the point. It is impossible any more to evaluate art independently of the new environment that has been created. #nd this environment makes it impossible to consider anything as a privileged ob+ect. Bf course, you can always stop dead and focus on a particular work for a while, and I do it occasionally ?I have written catalogue essays like everyone else@, as one suddenly focuses on a piece of information on the evening news, but it is immediately replaced by some other news, other works already claiming attention, or the same space in the gallery. :rom the point of view of the gallery wall, there isnt much of a difference between one kind of art and another. The same goes for the art system as a whole, which doesnt allow for anything to stand out for too long. #rt is not in the era of mechanical reproduction any more, but in the era of mass consumption. In a consumer society art is being consumed like any other product, and the mass circulation and consumption of art changes entirely its status and reception. #rt isnt e%actly a commodity, but it assumes all its characteristics, and it is more and more difficult for anything to retain any kind of singularity for too long. This ambiguity also serves the art business well because it can always claim that theres something special to art at the same time that it makes it impossible to retrieve anything singular from it. <ut this would still belong to the kind of argument developed around the 3society of the spectacle,4 and we already are much beyond that. When $irilio talks about speed as the ma+or shaping factor of our societies, he isnt +ust talking about how fast one can go, but of the specific impact speed has on our entire environment. It isnt +ust that we can travel faster, or communicate instantaneously, but everything that goes with that. When one walks by foot, what one

sees of the surroundings is not +ust slower, it is entirely different from what one would see from a fast car taking the same itinerary, let alone a plane. &peed takes us on a trip of its own where the value of things, and their perception is entirely changed. &o it is with art. When we look at one work, one cant ignore anymore that hundreds of artworks are being made at the same moment and e%hibited in the most unlikely places. Theres an aesthetic pollution of art in every way similar to the pollution of distances. =lobalization makes things look small, even if they try to stand tall. Bne doesnt look at any of it in the same way. The world interferes with our perception. It was the same with theory after it was so massively appropriated by a horde of fickle fans. "eleuzes ideas didnt become less interesting or generous after people started raving about them, but it took me a lot more effort to keep them fresh in my mind. &imilarly, the art environment has e%panded at the e%pense of art and it is becoming impossible to enter a gallery and not see the writing on the wall.

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/09/art/a life in theory