Bücher von Eric Selland

Brushwork consists of a selection of pages from Eric Selland's recent notebooks, featuring abstract works done with calligraphic brush. Many of these pieces can stand as individual works, but they are actually part of a whole, often framing, or framed by, text written with black-ink pen, so that the notebook itself functions as a work in its own right.Eric Selland writes: "In recent years the notebook has become the primary focus of my writing. Part of this comes from a questioning of the concept of the completed work, the 'product,' as being more important than the process - as if writing were merely an inconvenience to be borne as a means of reaching the goal of a finished work, which is then packaged and sold. I share this concern with a number of poets who approach writing as a daily practice. Here there is less emphasis on the final product and more on process. At the same time, however, I realize that I'm moving in two different directions at once¿: the conceptual or ideal relationship to language and thought in the form of daily writing, and the understanding of language in its materiality, where the written word becomes an object or shape in a visual work." (From the introduction)

The poet cites the following works as inspiration:Franz Kafka, The Trial, Diaries 1910-1923Rainier Maria Rilke, RodinPaul Ricoeur, On InterpretationMartin Heidegger, Country Path ConversationsGiorgio Agamben, NuditiesGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of SpiritTerayama Sh¿ji, The Labyrinth and The Dead Sea: My TheatreYoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of MemoryMaeda Ai, Text and the CityE.M. Cioran, Drawn and QuarteredMarjorie Perloff, The Vienna Paradox: A MemoirFriedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of TragedyFredric Jameson, The Hegel VariationsTilman Osterwold & Thomas Knubben, Emil Nolde: Unpainted PicturesHenri Lefebvre, The Production of SpaceHijikata Tatsumi, Yameru Mai-himeYoshioka Minoru, Umayahashi NikkiKobayashi Toshiaki, Shutai no Yukue Norman Fischer writes this about Eric Selland's OBJECT STATES:"No object that isn't a state of mind or being, no state of mind or being that doesn't appear as an object, an event, a thought, a phrase. This haunting philosophical impasse and delight is the subject of Eric Selland's quietly beautiful book in which nearly every echoing sentence invites pondering. 'The poet screaming inside a fish.' 'A day which is merely a symptom.' Do you know where or who you are?" - NORMAN FISCHER Jane Joritz-Nakagawa writes this about Eric Selland OBJECT STATES: "Eric Selland finds 'invisible doors' in spaces we did not know existed but are pleased to meet. 'Language is a city' both east and west and at once familiar and unfamiliar in 'the absent presence of memory.' A finework both haunting and revelatory from one of the most skillful of contemporary poets." - JANE JORITZ-N