A Conversation with Hubert Damisch

Author(s): Yve-Alain Bois, Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Hubert Damisch
Source: October, Vol. 85 (Summer, 1998), pp. 3-17
Published by: The MIT Press
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A ConversationwithHubertDamisch*

YVE-ALAIN BOIS, DENIS HOLLIER,

AND ROSALIND KRAUSS

of
Denis Hollier:How would you defineyourself?Historian of art?Anti-historian
art?Theoristof art?Philosopherof art?How would you defineyour"field"?
HubertDamisch:It's a field with three poles, and here my early trainingwith
Merleau-Pontyplayed a decisive part: the question of the unconscious; the
question of history(whichI would put in thirdplace); and somethingI don't
knowwhetherto call formor structure.I guess I'd say,usingWittgenstein's
definition:formas the possibilityof structure.Whyart? Because I thought
thatartwould be the medium throughwhichI could simultaneously
connect
these threepoles.
When I was studyingwithMerleau-Ponty,
I wanted to workon Goya in
relation to somethingI called "the perception of history."This interested
Merleau-Ponty
verymuch.It was the idea thattherewas a perceptionofhistory
that connects to darkness in the sense in which you find this in Lucien
noire."It was the idea that in the
Febvre,or initiallyin Michelet: "l'histoire
midst of a history that was narrative, discursive, something suddenly
occurred in the workof Goya and especiallyin the "Black Paintings"of the
Quinta del Sordo: a kindofsilence.It wouldbe, then,a matternot ofnarrating
historybut of seeing it. What would a phenomenologyof the perceptionof
historybe? You have to rememberthatwe werejust emergingfromthe war.
It was extremelyimportantto me, the idea that I had perceived history.
Duringthewaras a childand adolescentthiswas somethingI saw.I remember
hearing the firstnews about the war announced on the radio; but I didn't
reallybelieve it until I saw the facts actuallywrittenon the posters. In the
same way,I was profoundlymarked by one of the firstexamples of what I
experienced as graphic design as such: the eagle and the swastikaon the
deportationnotices.
Bois:But how did you pass fromMerleau-Pontyto structuralism
Yve-Alain
and what
role did Francastelplaythere?
This conversationtook place onJanuary11, 1998.
OCTOBER 85, Summer
Institute
1998,pp. 3-17. ? 1998 October
Magazine,Ltd.and Massachusetts
ofTechnology.

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OCTOBER

workI had knownpreviouslythrough

Damisch:As soon as Merleau-Ponty--whose
to
the
him-came
read
Sorbonne, I attended his seminars. These
having
were astonishingin that he was a voracious reader. Whateverthe subject,
each seminartook up the question by examiningall the major books on it;
forexample,in theseminaron consciousnessand the acquisitionoflanguage,
we read Saussure,Jakobson,etc. So, strangelyenough, I was initiallyexposed
to structuralismthrough Merleau-Ponty.It was also Merleau-Pontywho
directed me to the seminars of Levi-Strauss.As I said, Merleau-Pontywas
interestedin the three major questions of the time,whichwere linguistics,
psychoanalysis-not only Freud, but Melanie Klein, Lacan (although not
reallyLacan, even though he was present as a personality.Merleau-Ponty
would saythathe expectedgreatthingsfromLacan but thathe had produced
nothing;his expressionwas, "Whata shame, such genius!")-and the third
thingwas the reflectionon history.
When I presentedmyselfto Merleau-Pontyto do whatat the timewas
called a diplomain graduatestudies,he listenedto me talkabout myinterests,
then he was silentforquite a while,and then he said, "Fine,you willdo your
thesison Cassirer."When I said I had neverheard of Cassirer,Merleau-Ponty
retorted,"You claim to have read me and yet I cite Cassirer everyother
page." I realized that of course he was the source of the idea of symbolic
formsbut his workwas in GermanwhichI didn't knowand the diploma was
supposed to be finishedin a year.Merleau-Pontysaid, "No problem,you will
learn it in six months."The next thingwas thatat the time Cassirerwas not
availablein Paris exceptat the Musee de l'Homme due to Levy-Bruhl's
having
bought Cassirer'sworks.1On thatsame day,Merleau-Pontysaid thatsince I
was interestedin art therewas a textbya greatart historiancalled Panofsky
(whose name I thusheard mentionedforthe firsttime) who had developed
somethingout of Cassireron the subjectof perspective.
Bois:And when did all thistranspire?
Damisch:In 1955. Merleau-Pontyknew that I was interestedin anthropology--in
factat the time I was undecided between thatand art history.But MerleauPonty said that if I was reallygoing to do art historyI should workwith
Francastel.
RosalindKrauss:Wouldn'tyou say thatyou found your own voice not around art
history as a historical matter but around structuralism-the fusion of
withhistory?
structuralism
Damisch:Francastelwas interestedin two things.One was what we now call the
social historyof art,of whichhe was a precursor.And, like Schapiro,he was
simultaneouslyinterestedin the art of the Middle Ages and contemporary
art, to the great benefitof both fieldsof research and criticism.But what
interestedme in Francastelwas whathe rejected.There was a whole aspect
1.

AfterLevy-Bruhl's
death, his librarywas givento the Mus6e de l'Homme.

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A ConversationwithHubertDamisch

of Francastel'sworkthatwas concerned withthe problem of whathe called

language"whichhe wantedto investigatein a systematicway,and
"figurative
on his part. He was taken up by
there
a totalrefusalof structuralism
was
yet
the dispute between structuralismand history--itwas the moment when
Sartreor Lucien Febvreargued against Levi-Strauss-and he was caught up
withthis.What immediatelyinterestedme, however,was the perceptionthat
there are questions thatemerge fromwithinthe historicalfieldthatcan be
posed in historicaltermsbut that historyitselfcannot answer.That's what
absorbed me: how is it that historycan pose questions that it nonetheless
cannot answer?
Krauss:Would you say thatsuch a question arises withregard to the problem of
origins?
Damisch:No, I wouldn't. It might arise regarding [a voir]-I like the French
expression a voirbecause this brings in the dimension of perceptionthe originbut it wouldn'trelate to it in the waya historianwould,
regarding
for example a contextualisthistorian.In opposition to this I am interested
on the one hand in the archaic and in a futureabout which we have no
means to think.This is importantbecause today we are in a situation in
in the past tense. All utopian, all
which historyonly thinksretrospectively,
dimension
within
it
is
aborted
fromthe outset. In relationto
thus
projective
in
we
this
which
we
now
have
live,
history
paradox
namely,thatof "lateness"-late capitalism:whatis it now thatit has survivedits greatenemy?I thinkour
incapacityto imaginea futureis relatedto thissense of livingin a situation
definedonlybyitsbelatedness.Arewe goingto dwellunceasinglyin the "late,"
the "post"?Jameson,forinstance,now speaks of the "post-contemporary"
as
is onlythinkableas a typeof apres-coup.
thoughcontemporaneity
Bois:I thinkRosalind asked thisquestion about the originbecause you have often
raised it, even in the titlesof yourbooks and, forexample, in your texton
Robinson Crusoe or yourinterestin Dubuffet.All this concerns the mythof
origin.

Damisch: If I invoke the notion of origin in the title of The Origin of Perspective

[1987] thisdoesn'timplygoingback to an origin.It's a playon thewordorigin

in which,first,thereis the aspectof parody:TheOriginofPerspective
is a parody
on Husserl's Origin ofGeometry.
And the Piero book [ Un souvenird'enfancepar
Piero della Francesca (1997)] is a parody on Freud's Leonardo da Vinci: And a
Memoryof His Childhood [ Un souvenir d'enfance de Leonardo da Vinci]. In the

Renaissance there was much discussion about whether perspective was

inventedor discovered.Discoveredimpliesthatit is a naturalformthatone
is able to findin the world;inventedmeans thatperspectiveis a convention.
The playbetweeninventionand discoveryis one about origin.It's a departure
in the sense both of startingup and strayingfrom.If thereis an origin,it'sin
the sense thatthe developmentof perspectiveitselfis a parodyof the origin
of geometry.As was geometry,it was foundedon a whole perceptual,sensory

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OCTOBER

body of previous knowledge,fromwhich it constructeda new departure.

There is no sense in maintainingthatperspectiveis constitutedfroma whole
empirical development,which is the traditionalargument,that of Andre
Chastel,RobertKlein, etc. No, thereis a real departureand thusa point of
originthatis markedand I wantto knowwhatthispointof originis.
We have to recognizethatthisis not the same as the "mythof origin."I
am a "modern"and thusI am interestedin the need to startfroma zero that
is not synonymous
withthe origin.When RobinsonCrusoe is beached on his
island he has veryfewthings,but importantly,
not nothing:a rifle,nails, a
hammer. And he has to start from zero. In Valery's wonderful text on
Robinson he focuseson the question of what Robinson chooses to do with
regard to culture:Will he rewriteall the books he's read, the poetryhe's
known?Or will he go back to zero? And Valerysays that the real issue for
Robinson is to work on the sequel. And that I thinkis one of the major
themesof mywork:the sense expressedat the beginningof the centuryand
shared by Schoenberg,Kandinsky,etc., thata greatperiod of art is founded
on everything
thatcomesbeforeit;one musthaveperfectly
assimilatedthepast
beforegoing forward(this is a theme of Greenberg's,but it was formulated
wellbeforehim).
Bois:Does thisrelateto yourinterestin chess?
Damisch:Yes,thisis whythe metaphorof chess engages me. Because eitheryou can
thinkof it in termsof the whole historyof a particulargame-as it has developed up to thatpoint throughthe successionof all the precedingmoves-or
you stumbleinto the middle of a game and see the positionson the board at
thatmomentand you have to figureout whatto do fromthenon. In a certain
waythisis a model of historyas wellbecause therewe are caughtbetweenthe
same twopossibilities.Eitherwe thinkofour situationas the outcome of such
and such a seriesof historicaldeterminationsor we take it simplyas it is and
ask whatto do fromthere,giventhe informationthatis containedwithinthe
presentmoment.The differencebetweenchess and historyis thatin a game
with perfectinformation,each position provides the playerswith all the
informationthatis necessaryto decide about the nextmove.
Krauss:Could you develop the chess metaphorin relationto whatyou mentioned
beforeabout your field'ssecond pole, whichyou spoke of as being located
betweenformand structure?
formand structure.It is not a matterof
Damisch:I didn't say that it was between
somethingmidwaybetweenthe twobut more of a dialectic.Take the example
of a grid. In English you can say thatit's a structure,that,like a scaffold,it
holds; it resistsstress.In Frenchyou can't saythat.Like a chessboard,a grid
is somethingone calls a "weave"-two strandsthatinterlace;whereasa braid
has at least threestrands.If we are dealing witha slightlymore complicated
grid, to which the element of color is added, we could arriveat something
likea structure,
but a gridisn'tone yet.

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A ConversationwithHubertDamisch

I understandabout structuralism
is based preciselyon the
Krauss:But everything
coordinates of the grid. For example, the relationshipbetween metaphor
the relationshipbetween substitutionand contiguity--all
and metonymy,
have to do withthe coordinatesmapped bya grid.
Damisch:For me structuralismis not to be found in a binarymodel but in the
Levi-Straussianmodel, which is three-dimensional.It's the model fromthe
ElementaryStructureof Kinship in which relationships cannot be thought in

two dimensions.In workingon thisbook Levi-Straussconstructedlittlecardboard models that are still in his studythroughwhich he thoughtabout
kinshiprelationships-about how women circulated,forexample. You can't
map this two-dimensionally,
you need three coordinates.You can't thinkit
withouta coordinatethatis the equivalentof time.
As forthe grid itself,it's a formthatopens the possibilityof defininga
structure:either a formalstructurein which one adds color, for example,
therebyproducingmultipleelements thatcan enterinto relationwitheach
other;or a supporton whichto play,withinwhichthe game thattakesplace
on the grid willbecome somethinglike a structure.In its Renaissance definition, perspective is-and this is what is important for me-first and
foremostthe constructionof a stage on which a narrativetakes place (the
istoriain Alberti'ssense); and because thisnarrativecan add an unconscious
dimension,perspectiveplayson those multiplepoles thatinterestme.
Hollier:To open up a parenthesis,the otherdayI was struckto finda textin which
Barthes speaks of the churches depicted by Sanredam in a manner that is
close to the wayyou speak of the Urbino perspectives.And I
fundamentally
wonderedabout the wayyou use the word stage-the constructionof a stage
that is anterior to the appearance of a particular narrative.During that
period-when Bartheswrotehis text-there was, precisely,a widespreadfascination with these moments of narrative suspension, with a kind of
thresholdof narrative,as in the nouveauroman,etc.

Damisch: Yes. One chapter of The Origin of Perspectiveis called "The Suspended

Representation."And this idea of suspensionis everywherein Piero. In the

Urbino perspectivesit is impossible to know if the curtain,so to speaksince therewere not actuallystage curtainsthen-is going up on an action
about to happen, or being lowered afterit is over.In the Madonna delParto
thereare the twoangels thathold the flapsof the tent,and we don't knowif
theyare in the process of opening or closing it. It's these momentsof suspension thatinterestme.
Bois:How does a historicalor theoreticalobject such as those on whichyou work
get transformed?
Damisch:Yes, and end up playing differentroles? The perspective apparatus
continues to filla practical functiontoday.In a computeryou stillneed to
referto the grid as an ultimateframeof referencein order to studyall the
possibilities of transformation.But at the same time perspective has a

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OCTOBER

differentstatus because it has become a kind of paradigm on which we

constantlyrely:when Lacan wantsto speak of the topologyof the subjecthe
refers to the dispositifofperspective. So the question is: how do objects
become models,paradigms?
Bois:Exactly.The objectsyou workon are those thathave become models.
Damisch:I call themtheoreticalobjects.
Bois:So what'sthe differencebetweensuch an object and a historicalor empirical
object?
Damisch:It is not we who produce this object. A theoreticalobject is one thatis
called on to functionaccording to norms that are not historical.It is not
sufficientto writea historyof this object. It's what I said before: it's not
enough to writea historyof a problem for that problem to be resolved.A
theoreticalobject is somethingthatobliges one to do theory;we could start
there.Second, it's an object thatobligesyou to do theorybut also furnishes
you withthe means of doing it. Thus, ifyou agree to accept it on theoretical
terms,it will produce effectsaround itself.While I workedon perspectiveI
began to have apercuswithregard to the historyof science thatare not at all
traditional; I began, that is, to produce theory.Third, it's a theoretical
object because it forcesus to ask ourselveswhattheoryis. It is posed in theoreticalterms;it produces theory;and it necessitatesa reflectionon theory.
But I never pronounce the word theory
withoutalso sayingthe word
Which is to say that for me such an object is always a theoreticohistory.
historical object. Yet if theoryis produced withinhistory,historycan never
completelycover theory.That is fundamental for me. The two terms go
togetherbut in the sense in whicheach escapes the other.
Bois: If we use the /cloud/ as such an object (as in your Theoryof the/Cloud/
[1972]), couldn't we also say thatit is an object thatformsan exception,in
thiscase to thesystemofperspective?How did youarriveat thisidea offinding
the organizingvectorforvarioushistoricalperiods in an object thatexistsas
an exceptionto a givensystem?
Damisch:It's not that it exists as an exception ... although it's true that in the
perspectivalsystem,whichis linear,the cloud is somethingthathas nothing
linear about it and that within a systemof spatial coordinates can't be
delimited.But at the same time,the cloud is thatwhichis closestto "painting,"
and thusit has an emblematicvalue. The cloud is the zero degree of painting.
It's the "stain." I'm not speaking of the "stroke" here; there's nothing
graphicabout it. It's whatis purelymaterialor substance.So as a theoretical
This means
object it has an emblematicstatus:the emblem of pictoriality.
thatat the same timeas it is exceptionalwithinthe system,the cloud always
containssomething"pictorial"as such. I incessantlyreturnto Brunelleschi's
experiment in which he representsthe Baptisteryin Florence by all the
means available to geometrical perspective but when he gets to the sky,
geometrydefaultsand he has to inserta mirrorin whichto reflectthe real

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withHubertDamisch
A Conversation

clouds and sky.The cloud introducessomethingthathas no place in painting

but at the same time is painting.So paintingis itselfdefinedwithinthistype
of paradox.
In the Urbino perspective the rules are observed in the strictest
sense-and here we could return to the example of Sanredam-but then
there is a skyin which the clouds are brilliantlypainted and there is the
experience thatpaintingitselfhas suddenlyarrivedat a kind of synthesisable to master at one and the same time light, chroma, language. But I
repeat thatthe cloud has an emblematiccharacter.It is found exactlyat the
point in the systemwhere it escapes. Paintingvanishes withinthe graphic
systemonlyto discoveritselfin the cloud.
Bois:So you called yourbook Theory
ofthe/Cloud/preciselybecause it'sa theoretical
object.
Damisch:Well,thereis stillanother playon wordsin this title.In Greek the word
theorymeans succession-the women who march in the Panathenaic
procession, for example. So it is (or should be) the "theory"of all the
/clouds/ in history,at least in the historyof painting. Once again theory
you have to be in historyin orderto do theory.So a theoretical
implieshistory;
can
be
an
element of paintinginsofaras it can claim an emblematic
object
or
insofar
as
we could makesuch a claimforit.Whatwe findin classical
status,
Italian paintingis not a language but a will toward language. Renaissance
paintingwas inhabited by a will to "speak,"or at least to communicate,to
it attemptedto constructa systemwithouteverbeing able to achieve
signify;
it fully.And the /cloud/-between slashes to designate it as a sign-the
/cloud/ gives us access to the systemthrough ... There's the properly
analyticdimensionof mywork.I startfromdetails such as clouds-to which
no one else pays the least attention-and I tryto enter a given systemby
means of it. In takinga particularfrescoby Piero by means of a detail-the
hand of the Virgin in the Madonna del Parto--that's where it becomes a
theoreticalobject,it raises questions.
The greatquestion regardinghistorythatneverstops attractingmesince it has a relation to our contemporarysituation-is, whydo the works
of theQuattrocentostillconcernus? Ifa workofarttrulydepends on a specific
historicalcontext,as the social historiansof artwould have it, then in order
to understand it we have to transportourselves into the conditions that
existed in a specifictime and place. But all that makes no sense as far as I
am concerned. There is absolutelyno way to look at a work throughthe
"period eye,"as Baxandall would have us do. The issue is that we, in our
own time,look at worksof the Quattrocento.And the question is, how is it
thata historicalworkof art interestsus, given thatwe should onlybe compelled byworksof our own time,worksthatbelong to the same "context"as
we do?
Hollier:So would you enterthe /cloud/ into the workof Dubuffet?

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10

OCTOBER

Damisch:I wouldn'tsay so. Dubuffetis another question. What interestedme in

Dubuffetwas that he was the anti-Duchamp. You remember Duchamp's
famous printof two chess playersthatI showed in the exhibitionI curated
at the BoymansMuseuminJune 1997?2One dayI arrivedat Dubuffet'sstudio
and he was furious.I asked him what was wrongand he said, "That idiot,
Duchamp! He just managed to get $2,000 offof me forhis Chess Association
and in exchange he gave me thishorribleetchingof chess players.You want
it? Take it!" The two of them knew each other ratherwell. Dubuffetinterested me because in a certain way he was Duchamp's complete adversary.
Duchamp,the consummateHegelian,said thatartno longerhad anyinternal
of course. But what
necessity;it was now a pure convention.I'm simplifying
interestsme here is the absence of necessity.Whydid Dubuffetlook at the
work he collected under the label of "ArtBrut"-which is not to be confounded withthe so-called art of the insane (whichmeant nothingto him:
from
"There is no more 'art of the insane' than thereis art of the sufferers
housemaid's knee," he would say)? It's because these workswere drivenby
necessity.There was no audience. So itwas the inversesituationfromthatof
Duchamp. There was no public,therewas no museum,no exhibition-only
an urgentdriveto draw,to paint. Whywas Dubuffetopposed to therapeutic
activityin the asylums?Because at that point an audience begins to form.
The patients start doing things on the walls. Whereas what interested
Dubuffetwas just this little guy in his tinyroom obsessivelyscribblingor
whittlingand driven by necessity.And that's what is interestingbecause
Dubuffettoo was obsessional, driven,or wanted to be. He constructedhis
own "necessity."He tried to discovera formof artthatwould be "necessary"
once again. That's whythe word artpreoccupied him so. I onlyrealized this
thatis itsbasis.
aspect of myinterestin Dubuffetlateron; but fundamentally
However,Denis, ifyou'veposed the question of Dubuffetin relationto
the /cloud/, it certainlyis the case thatDubuffet'sworkraises the issue of
the physicalmatterthatis deposited and that the /cloud/ is fundamentally
about the question of physicalmatter.But in Dubuffetmatteris reduced to a
substance that is ridiculous,derisory:sand, charcoal, dirt,nothing"aerial"
wings.
exceptforbutterfly
Needless to say,I sent Dubuffetmybook on clouds. I don't knowwhat
he thoughtabout it. At least he liked the title;it was one of the fewbooks
that remained in his libraryafterhis death. And he would constantlysend
me postcardswith littleclouds. He would call me Mr. Cloud and referto
himselfas "yourRobinson."
Krauss:There are certainholes in whatwe've done up untilnow,and I don't know
whetherthisis the time to tryto fillthem.For example, I've neverread The
Hubert Damisch, Moves: Playing Chess and Cards withtheMuseum, exhibition catalogue
2.
(Rotterdam:BoymansMuseum,1997).

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withHubertDamisch
A Conversation

11

You refer to The Origin ofPerspectiveas a parody of

Origin of Geometry.
Husserl. Could you explain how thatworks?
Damisch:It's the idea thatin order forsomethinglike a geometryto appear there
forexample.
has to be an empiricalgroundof experience.Take the pyramids,
For Thales to come, it was necessarythatthe Egyptianland surveyorslearn
how to calculate the surfaceof a definitearea. It was necessarythatone be
able to produce a new typeof object-clean, well delineated,regular,"pure."
Takingofffromtheresomethingdevelops thatone would call a geometrical
experience. But the geometrical experience consists in breakingwith the
empirical-that was Husserl's basic idea. Geometry consists in abstract
thought.The empiricalwas necessaryin providinga ground,but one had to
abstractfromit. The same withperspective;it is constructedon an empirical
base-how to suggestdepth throughthe recedinglinesofa cofferedceilingbut at the momentwhen perspectiveconstitutesitself,it is as a theoretical
object. There is a leap forwardwhich consists in saying that perspective
definesitselfby means of a point of viewreflectedin a vanishingpoint. The
major idea is this one of departure.Francasteland I argued about this a lot
although Francastelalso refusedthe notion thatperspectivewas the result
of a long evolution.There was a momentof departurein the varioussenses
of the word:a new start,but also a displacement,a deviation [ecart].In mentioningthe Barthes textyou reminded me of somethingI haven't thought
about for a while. I am veryinterestedin Sanredam for a reason that is
consistentwithwhatwe've said about perspective,geometry,
and history.
Sanredam painted his most famous works at the moment when
Protestantismdefinitively
wins out in Holland over Catholicism and in a
Protestantchurchyou no longer have altars or pictures.You have nothing.
So what happens is that perspective is employed in a slightlyawkward,
slightlywarped way.It's not a centralpoint,frontalperspective,but one on
the bias; insteadof seeing the churchfroman axial point of view,one gets a
transversalview.This is in relationto the transformation
of the wayperspectivealwaysfunctionedas a stage. One no longer celebratesthe mass; what's
going to occur instead is the preacher standingin frontof the walls of the
church.So what'sgoing to count are the churchwalls.This is a perspectival
field that takes the place of the perspective apparatus. What Sanredam
revealsis whatI hope is in play in myown work,namely,thatit onlytakes a
slightwarping,a slightdisplacementof the main axis, forone to be able to
see thingsdifferently.
That's what I want to do, to succeed each time in displacing the
objects slightly,and at that point theygain their function as theoretical
objects. I startedout withthe idea of a theoreticalobject as somethingthat
would make doing theoryan act of extrapolation;but more and more I see
it simplyas a kind of deviation,as a displacementwithinwhichtheorytakes
place.

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12

OCTOBER

Hollier:I was interestedthatwhatyou proposed to Merleau-Pontyas a subjectwas

silence in art,because it seems thatin the referenceto Husserl-The Origin
the book byDerrida-and in manyofyourworks,you are particiofGeometry,
in
the
pating
critique of phonocentrism.There is in this silence and in the
interestin still life,in suspension,in the strokeas definingthe pictorialas
nonlinguistic-as escaping preciselythe linguistic,phonocentric modelsomethingcompletelyconsistent.Can you develop this?
Damisch:The problem was that at the beginning I was caught in the vogue for
semioticsbut I alwaysdenounced variousof itsmetaphorssuch as "reading,"
"text,"and above all the idea that one could simplyspeak of paintingas a
"language." I am less interestedin having painting "speak,"using different
historical tools, than in reflectingon what makes us speak in it. Music,
beginningwiththe seventeenthcentury,constitutesitselfas a quasi-language
(as Adorno says). It has no need foranalysisin order to constituteitself.But
paintingonlyconstitutesitselfas a language throughour acts of describing
it, or the linguisticappropriation of painting.But what fascinatesme the
most is the momentwhen paintingforcesus into silence. We talk and then
we sense thatthere'ssomethingthatescapes us.
Why am I interestedin description now? The Littre Dictionary says
that descriptionis a wayof rejoining,throughlinguisticmeans, the silence
or mutismof painting.Thus a descriptionmustfinallyarriveat silence. And
this is a complete paradox. One uses the detour of language in order to
encountermuteness.It's an idea of descriptionthat is completelydifferent
fromthe notion thatit should substituteitselfforthe object-because it's an
idea thatdescriptionshould be used to findwhatescapes description,what
stumpsit. Taine had a caricaturalpracticewhichwas thatwhen he traveled
in Italyhe would stand in frontof each painting(of course, he didn't have a
camera and he didn't sketchthe work)and writedown two or three lines of
description in his notebook. And afterwardhe worked fromwhat he had
written.Workingon these descriptionshe thoughthe was workingon the
paintings.
Here the referenceto Freud is importantin thatwhen, in the Studies
onHysteria,
he asked his patientsto describewhattheysaw,the imagesdisapin
the
course of theirverydescription. So the descriptionwas an
peared
instrumentfor makingthe images returnbut at the same time for making
them disappear, since what happened was that the descriptionsubstituted
itselfforthe image. The relationthis has to art is thatifdescriptionmakes
the object disappear, what is its rationale? On the contrary,for us every
more actively-it
descriptionshould make the workfunctionmore intensely,
should reactivatethe workby providinga new point of departureforit, for
our eyestoday.For me, silence is at the veryheartof description.
Bois: The concept of invention,as you see it, presupposes a discontinuity.What
about the epistemological models of Koyre and Canguilhem, which you

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A Conversation
withHubertDamisch

13

often mention? How did their conception of discontinuity affectyour

approach to history?
Damisch:What I neveraccepted in Francastelis the idea thattherewas something
like a figurativesystemthatbegan at a certain time,lasted one, two,three,
fourcenturies,and was then replaced bya new system,the so-called modern
one. I was alwaysverysuspicious of this myththroughwhich one said that
modern art corresponds to the end of scientificperspective,because no
period has been more immersedin perspective,or more dependent on the
model of perspective,than ours: photography,computers,and so forth.For
instance,I just saw a productionbyMerce Cunningham.What is fascinating
is how he now uses a computerto workon givensthatare stagelikebut not at
all traditional.Whatquestionsdoes he ask? If I balance a dancer on one foot
withone arm raised, what then? By using a computer he can findall the
positionsthatcan be permutedfromthese two pointsgiventhe possibilities
of the human body. It's exactly the question that Leonardo posed. The
underlyinggrid can be distorted,transmuted,but forthe systemto operate
you musthave this grid,as I said, as the ultimateframeof reference.If you
accept thatperspectiveis firstand foremosta reticulatedsystemthatformsa
support for a whole range of differenttypes,it becomes obvious that we
haven'texited thatsystem,any more than we have leftthe systemof tonality
in music. That we had, at the beginningof this century,brokenwitheither
of thesesystemsis a fiction.Now,how does thisfictionoperate in relationto
the issue of the stage or the "scene"?And it's here thatthe matterof history
enters.Whatoperates as a stage,or a "scene,"now?How does filmhelp us to
thinkabout thisquestion?
Hollier:But doesn't the question of abstractionentail,precisely,somethinglike an
epistemologicalrupture?
Damisch:Abstractionis whatenterswiththe vanishingpoint, the idea of infinity.
When Albertisaysthatthe differencebetweenthe painterand the geometer
is thatthe latteris involvedwitha line thathas no thickness,withsurfaces
that have no substance,with points that have no extension (which means
thattheycannotbe seen, thattheyremaininvisible)-that'swhereabstraction
startsfrom.There is a concept thatis beginningto take on more and more
importance for me-it's the idea of knotting,which is to say nouage as
opposed to nuage [cloud]. I fantasize about writinga Theoryof/Knotting/
du /nouage/],
whichwould ask how Westernartconstitutesitself
[Une Thdorie
in relationto a fundamentalknottingor linkingwithgeometryin Greece or
even in Egypt-the business of the pyramidsis absolutelyextraordinary.
There are immediate consequences of geometryand the reduction to the
limit,which were clearly analyzed for example byJackie Pigeaud, which
means that with its linkage with geometryWestern art was haunted by a
numberof fantasies,such as the idea thata line could have no thickness,a
point no extension.As we have seen, you findthis in Alberti.In fact,this

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14

OCTOBER

operated for two millennia. When the knot with geometryunravels,what

replaces it?I willanswerbymeans of a detourand then returnto abstraction
itself.
On the one hand, there is a linkagewithpoetry.Utpicturapoesis.This
opens onto iconography.But froma formalpoint of view paintingdoesn't
operate in any way like poetry.On the other,at the end of the nineteenth
centurythere is a linkage with music. Walter Pater stressed this. This is
musicas a model forart,since it is a musicthatfunctionsas abstract-without
a program,nonillustrative,
not depictingdances, etc. So there is a striking
between
continuity
painting'srelationto geometryas a modalityof abstraction
and its relation to music declared abstract.If it is abstract,this means that
musicis understoodas somethinglike a language.
So whathappens withpaintingis thaton the one hand it had attained
a quasi-linguisticstatusat the iconographiclevel; and on the other hand in
relation to music's abstraction it claims another type of quasi-linguistic
definition.Now the firstletterKandinskywroteto Schoenberg,in January
1911, saysthatwe are in a time of constructionin paintingbut thiswillnot
take place through a relation to geometry.Through what mightit pass?
There are several hypotheses.There is color: Van Gogh, Gauguin, speak of
color sonoritiesthe way one would speak of this in music.And then at the
same time therewas the idea of a relationshipwitha topology,albeit a very
strangeone, because itwas a topologythatwasn'tone of figuresor knotsbut
one of color. Is such a thingthinkable?Now one of the hypothesesI have is
that in relation to color what is organizingitselfis a type of basic sensory
experience that is like what we were speaking of before in relation to
geometry-the organizingof an empiricalbasis fromwhicha new theoretical
departurecould occur.
A break makes sense in termsof its relationto whatpreceded it. The
rupturethatoccurswithabstractartonlyhas sense ifabstractionhas a relation
to Cezanne, and even more withSeurat. Thus there is a rupture,but at the
same time there mustbe-a "relve"-an Aufhebung
in the Hegelian sense. So
there is a rupture,somethingnew which manifestsitself,but was already
presentin thatwillto languagewhichwas in Renaissancepainting.It manifests
itselfin abstraction-which is also a willto language. Paintingclaimsto selfaffirmation
as language throughthe model of music.
I
was
Hollier:
wonderingabout the differencebetweenabstractionas thatis manifestedin geometrywhere a line shrinksto the point of becoming abstract
and the equivalentforthis in the domain of color,whichis not evidentfor
me.
Damisch:But it'sno longergeometry.It's topology.How can we conceivea topology
of color?
Hollier:The experience of color itselfis irreducibly
empirical,no?
Damisch:WhenWittgenstein
speaksofa geometryof color,whatdoes he say?He says

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A Conversation
withHubertDamisch

15

thatwe can'tjust sayanythingwhateverabout color. There are constraintsin

language thatprohibitus fromutteringcertainstatementsabout color.Thus
thereis a kindof "geometry"
withinlanguageas faras color is concerned.
It's a hypothesisthat I advance in order to help me thinkthis thing
about knotting:at one time art knots a relation to geometry-it loosens;
then it knotsone withpoetry;afterwardit knotsone withmusic.But whatis
therein thisthatis stillgeometrical?
Bois:In yourbook on perspectivethereis somethingthatalwaysstrikesstudents;
it is the manner in which you apply the concept of the transformation
group.
Damisch:The transformationgroup formedby the Urbino panels forcesone to
think about transformationin a systematicway.What interestsme more
than the systemare the transformations
themselves.It's like the sentencewe
findin Levi-Strauss'sWayoftheMasks:"Whatcounts in a mask is not whatit
Now,the group of threeUrbino perspecrepresentsbut whatit transforms."
tivesis a typicaltheoreticalobject. It's a strictgroup since everypermutation
of everyparameteris done in relation to the two others. If a fourthpanel
had been introduced that didn't respond to the parameters of the three
others,I would have had to reconstitutethe rules forthe entirenew group.
The whole business of Velasquez's Las Meninas and Picasso's subsequent
exercisesworksin the same way.
Hollier:But Las Meninasis not a group in itself.In thiswaywe mightreturnto the
issue of parody.In Picasso'scase itis not simplya matterof a transformational
groupwhetherunconsciousor historical,but it is thematized.
Damisch:I hesitateto speak of thisaspect of mywork.But I can't embarkon a work
unless I have a title and a form.That's whya formas the possibilityof a
structureis utterlybasic for me. Before startinga book, I have to have a
form.The /Cloud/is formallyverysimple. It's a book in fiveparts.The first
part has fivechapters;the second parthas fourchapters;the thirdhas three
chapters;the fourthhas twochapters;and the fifthhas one.
Hollier:Verycloudyat first,but then it clears up!
[General laughter]
Damisch:Anotherimportantaspect is the parody: in A Childhood
MemorybyPiero
della Francesca,a parody of Freud's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, there is a
But also, what
parodyof Derrida's approach to Husserl's OriginofGeometry.
counted forme enormouslywas that Merleau-Pontydid his last seminarat
the Collkge de France on TheOriginofGeometry.
I couldn't attendthe whole
I
but
have
notes
for
whichI cite of course. I
about
half,
thing
verycomplete
if
wondered
Derrida
this.
attended
Derrida's
always
Origin and Merleauare
one
from
different
the
other.
Ponty's very
it seems to me thatit's difficult
to
Hollier:To returnto thisidea of transformation,
make itagree withwhatyousaid at theverybeginningabout history-whichis
to say,aboutthepresenthistoricalmomentwhenthereis no longeranyopening

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16

OCTOBER

onto the future.I have the impressionthat thereare two models of history
thatare incompatiblehere: the one thatwe could call the historyof transformationand the one in a sense thathas to be called historyat a dead end.
Damisch:I'm not speaking of a historyat a dead end; but we are completely
trapped. Marxism,as Derrida says,has become a specter that haunts our
nightsand our days.As a matterof fact,we are now livinga certainMarxism
become real. We livein a worldin whichthe economic subsumeseverything.
Logic now is simplyeconomics. How can we stillreferto "late" capitalismas
if capitalismwere approachingits end? We live in a momentof suspension.
Is it the end of somethingor the beginningof somethingelse?
Bois:We've been talkingabout rupturealong withthe longuedurie:perspectiveis
not over; it continues in another form.Could you speak more about your
relation to anthropologywhich you mentioned at the beginning?Because
what has always struckme about your work is its strong anthropological
dimension,since the idea of the longuedureein yourworkhas alwaysseemed
linkedto thisanthropologicalimpulse.
Damisch:In the 1950s whatwas strikingabout anthropologywas its preoccupation
with societies supposedly withouthistory.Levi-Straussresponded to this
problem by drawingthe differencebetweenso-called hot societiesand cold
ones, societies that developed veryrapidly or societies that evolved very
slowly.But it was also a matterthat these societies didn't thinkin termsof
history.It wasn'tjustthattheydidn'tevolve.As MarcAuge says,anthropology
has to deal with the issue of the other. The question that occupies me
enormouslyis one-typically Lacanian-that asks what type of truthone
strivesfor in each domain of work.In anthropologywe strivefora kind of
truthrelatedto the issue of the "other,"whichof course isn'ta disinterested
truth.If I ask the question of alterityit is because it concerns me in my
being-as-subject.The passage to arthas somethingof the same thing.There
is an alterityin artthatconcernsme in the same way.
Krauss:Well,to bucklethe buckle,you said at the beginningthatdoing contextualist
history,a historywhere you would have to tryto imagine yourselfin the
shoes of historicalcharacters,is not interestingto you. But this notion of
ethnographyis one preciselyof imaginingyourselfin some sortof intimate
connectionto people who are absolutelyother.So youwould succeed spatially
whereyou sayit is impossibleto do so in a temporaldimension.
Damisch:Relating to the past as well as to distance is alwaysa matterof alterity
(times as well as spaces are different)and a matterof identity(the past, the
distance as such, being part of our presentculture).The problemis how to
deal both with alterityand identity(or continuity)simultaneously.Social
anthropology, in its classical days, implied the possibility of dialogue
betweenthe anthropologistand his informers.As faras the artof the past is
concerned, this is more of a monologue: the workskeep silent. I repeat:
what mattersto me is less how to make the work of art "speak" (as Aby

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A Conversation
withHubertDamisch

17

Warburgused to say) than to understandwhat urges us to speak or, on the

whatsilencesus in frontof the workofart.This happens,sometimes,
contrary,
when a workemergesfroma remotepast thatbecomes an activepartof our
presentcontext.It maytake a book in order to cope withthe mute paradox
of such a proximity-a proximityin the distance,in whichhistoryacquires a
spatial dimension-whereas the flightof time seems to be interrupted,
suspended,in the same wayas musicis inscribedwith"rests,"with"silences."

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