Before you ask, no I haven’t been reading R.D. Laing’s Knots. Here I make more than passing reference to in the title is conceptualism, à la Reinhardt, Kosuth, Weiner, LeWitt et al. (and forgive me for taking these references1 as a shorthand for a myriad of significant moments, but I really don’t have time here to explain). I alighted on the title in the current milieu of sense and nonsense that we have foisted on ourselves in trying to wrestle down our global viral load and the tragic personal consequences for thousands, if not millions, of families in terms of bereavement and other less tallied suffering. Having, like many of us, been relatively confined for almost half a year now, my own suffering thus far has been insignificant, but relative sensory deprivation is perhaps the best way to describe my experience of Covid anti-culture. I am missing looking at, smelling, touching (don’t tell!) and navigating art, its spaces, its people, and perhaps more unexpectedly, its emotional draw and retinal imprint. Read all about it in the full article.
Neil Powell 