This is a really interesting interview!
Below some highlights that probably don’t make sense out of context!
“What we call “reason” is essentially negation: the definition of what things are through the specification of what they are not. It is thus profoundly divisive. We need to relearn the art of analogical thinking…”
“A photograph isn’t a representation or even an index. It is, rather, a special kind of analogy—the kind that our culture most needs. A photograph and its “referent” have so many affinities that we are unable to separate them from each other, but also enough differences to keep us from conflating them. This couple…helps us to see that similarity is not sameness and that difference does not automatically translate into opposition. They also show us that there really is a world and that not all images are human constructions.”
“Abstraction is often celebrated as the vehicle through which art established its autonomy. Art had to get rid of similitude, because only by being unlike everything else could it shake off the burden of representation and become a thing unto itself. But the notion of an autonomous artwork is closely linked to that of the solitary male subject and is susceptible to the same critique. Not only did a number of modernist artists try to prove that they were self-sufficient by creating autonomous works of art, but their repudiation of aesthetic referentiality was yet another way of rejecting analogy. In fact, there is no separate domain where art dwells…”
