Vita brevis, ars longa

the art collection as memento vivere in Utz

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18309/ranpoll.v54i1.1860

Keywords:

Chatwin, Utz, Collections, Lists

Abstract

The article deals with collecting in Utz (1989), by Bruce Chatwin. I read the fascination with collectors and collecting in the novel from and across two theoretical questions: (1) can objects enfold both a material status and an intangible effect as well as create an alternate narrative that would draw us away from commodification, objectification, and pathology? and (2) can the object confront us more with remnants of human life, with fragments of the representation of desire, and less with the residue of human labor? Kaspar Utz is a great collector of Meissen porcelain who the adverse events of history lead to living in Prague with his fragile treasures, under the malevolent eyes of a police state. Utz knows that a collector is almost an occult “theologian”, and his relationship with the Harlequins and the Colombines of Meissen has something idolatrous. Utz wages a silent war against the enemies that surround him, against the background noise of history, which would like to swallow forever these object-figures made of a substance refined by time. Utz’s lonely and manic life will become a game against the enemies, whose stake is the collection itself, an army of beings that must be removed from the brutal fingertips of tyrannical authority.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil

Possui mestrado em Estudos Literários: Literaturas de Expressão Inglesa pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (1996), doutorado sanduíche em Estudos Literários pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais e pela Columbia University (2002) e pós-doutorado na PUC-MINAS (2006). Atualmente é professor associado 2 da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais e tem experiência na área de Letras, com ênfase em Literaturas em Inglês e Literatura Comparada, atuando principalmente nos seguintes temas: os inícios da modernidade inglesa com John Milton e William Shakespeare; poesia renascentista inglesa, pós-modernismo, pós-colonialismo e Salman Rushdie, os espaços liminais das listas em textos literários, Gabinetes de curiosidades (arquivo e coleção). Bolsista de Produtividade em Pesquisa do CNPq - Nível 2.

References

ATKINS, Carl D. (ed.) Shakespeare’s Sonnets: With three hundred years of commentary. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007.

BAEKELAND, Frederick. Psychological aspects of art collecting. In: PEARCE, Susan (ed.). Interpreting objects and collections (leicester readers in museum studies). London: Routledge, 1994. p. 205-219.

BAL, Mieke. Telling objects: A narrative perspective on collecting. In: ELSNER, John; CARDINAL, Roger (ed.). The cultures of collecting. London: Reaktion Books, 1994. p. 97-115.

BAUDRILLARD, Jean. The system of objects. London: Verso, 1996.

BENJAMIN, Walter. Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

BREDEKAMP, Horst. Machines et cabinets de curiosités. Paris: Diderot Éditeur, 1996.

CARDINAL, Roger. The eloquence of objects. In: SHELTON, Anthony (ed.). Collectors: Expressions of self and other. London: The Horniman Museum and Garden, 2001. p. 23-31.

CHATWIN, Bruce. Utz. New York: Viking, 1989.

DERRIDA, Jacques. Glas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

DIKEN, Bülent; LAUSTSEN, Carsten Baggen. The collector’s world. Journal for Cultural Research, [S. l.], v. 24, n. 2, p. 101-112, 2020.

ESCRICHE-RIER, Pilar. New ways of seeing and storytelling: Narration and visualisation in the work of Bruce Chatwin. 2009. PhD (Doctoral dissertation) – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 2009.

HEPBURN, Allan (ed.). Enchanted objects: Visual art in contemporary fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

KAMUF, Peggy (ed.). A Derrida reader: Between the blinds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

KOSUTH, Joseph and DAMSCH-WIEHAGER, Renate (Eds). Joseph Kosuth: No Thing, No Self, No Form, No Principle (Was Certain) Kein Ding, Kein Ich, Keine Form, Kein Grundsatz (Sind Sicher). Stuttgart: Cantz, 1993.

MEANOR, Patrick. Bruce Chatwin. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997.

MUSIL, Robert. The Man without Qualities. London: Picador, 1995.

PEARCE, Susan. Collecting in contemporary practice. London: Sage, 1998.

PEARCE, Susan. Museums, objects and collections: A cultural study. Leicester: University Press, 1992.

PEARCE, Susan. On collecting: An investigation into collecting in the European Tradition. London: Routledge, 1995.

POMIAN, Krzysztof. Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.

REES, David (ed.). Bruce Chatwin, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes. London: The Colophon Press, 1992.

RÉGIO, José. Poesia: Obra completa volume I. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2001.

SHELTON, Anthony (ed.). Collectors: Expressions of self and other. London: The Horniman Museum and Garden, 2001.

TUTTER, Adele. A man and his things: Bruce Chatwin’s Utz. In: CAMDEN, Vera J. (ed.). The cambridge companion to literature and psychoanalysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. p. 145-167.

Downloads

Published

2023-12-29

How to Cite

Sá, L. F. F. (2023). Vita brevis, ars longa: the art collection as memento vivere in Utz. Revista Da Anpoll, 54(1), e1860. https://doi.org/10.18309/ranpoll.v54i1.1860

Issue

Vol. 54 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Estudos Literários

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Revista da Anpoll

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Os trabalhos publicados na Revista da Anpoll são licenciados sob os termos da licença Creative Commons Atribuição 4.0 Internacional. Assim, os/as autores/as ou terceiros podem copiar e redistribuir o material licenciado em qualquer suporte ou formato, e remixar, transformar, ou criar a partir do material desde que sejam dados os devidos créditos ao trabalho original. Ressalta-se que a redistribuição, transformação ou criação, de iniciativa de dos/as autores/as ou de terceiros, deve mencionar a precedência de sua publicação neste periódico, citando-se o volume, número e data desta publicação.