Bataille, Blanchot and Kawara: Confronting the Unsayable and the Impact of Time

Leslie Anne Boldt

Jump to Content

Bataille, Blanchot and Kawara: Confronting the Unsayable and the Impact of Time

In: Giving Voice to Silence

Author:

Leslie Anne Boldt

Leslie Anne Boldt
Search for other papers by Leslie Anne Boldt in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 13–22

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848884007_003

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€42.00€35.00 excl. VAT

Add to Cart

Redeem Access Token

In Languages of the Unsayable, Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser argue that all utterances are doubled by what is left unsaid, or by what cannot be said, and this unsayable quotient conditions these utterances through blanks and negations. The negativity that informs the unsayable thus acts as a double for the said and, while this negative force remains silent, its traceable impact can be felt. For 20^th Century French authors Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot, silence is a force that undoes writing, leaving the unsayable exposed in the text. Bataille confronts the unsayable when his inner experience leads him into a dead end, ‘where all possibilities are exhausted and the impossible prevails’. For Maurice Blanchot, the writer ‘belongs to a language that no-one speaks, that is addressed to no-one, that has no centre, [and] that reveals nothing’. For both authors, the writing process must sabotage itself if the unsayable is to be heard. But what of the visual artist who confronts the negativity of the unsayable? On Kawara, whose work is the subject of a restrospective at the Guggenheim called ‘On Kawara –Silence’, is a Japanese artist known for his daily date paintings, consisting of the date painted in white letters on a black background. Each new canvas is accompanied by a subtitle, gleaned from newspaper headlines of events occurring that day. Kawara’s choice of subtitles bespeaks his interest in ‘tragedy, violence, and death’. Indeed, despite their apparent tautological nature, his date paintings reveal much more than they appear to say. For Bataille, Blanchot, and Kawara – despite their different choice of media – the unsayable and silence are hinged to the negativity which is time. All three artists, in their own way, confront and reveal this negativity, a troubling dynamic that ‘speaks’ in their work.

Citation Info

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share link with colleague or librarian

You can email a link to this page to a colleague or librarian:
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://brill.edhh.ma/abstract/book/edcoll/9781848884007/BP000003.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

Giving Voice to Silence

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848884007

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2016

Subjects
- Philosophy
  - General
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

Metrics

	All Time	Past 365 days	Past 30 Days
Abstract Views	271	56	21
Full Text Views	3	1	1
PDF Views & Downloads	5	0	0

African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

Subjects

Authors

Open Access

Product Information

Company

Contact

Bataille, Blanchot and Kawara: Confronting the Unsayable and the Impact of Time

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Giving Voice to Silence

Table of Contents

Metrics

Metrics