Things lie

Abstract

In Chapter five, art is examined through the image of a house ravaged by fire, put forth by Giorgio Agamben’s The Man without Content and in relation to the destructions of art explored previously and the Momart Fire specifically (perhaps here made literal). It also builds on examples such as Thomas Hirschhorn’s work Crystal of Resistance and its accompanying texts, in order to understand an operation in art that is made visible through these events. It additionally returns to ideas from Tom McCarthy’s Remainder as well as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Through these examples and events, one might begin to understand something more of art. In attempting to represent an affinity—to coax or draw it out—the text forms a portrait of sorts (in the Jean-Luc Nancy sense), and through it we might begin to see something that has disappeared through an operation of art.