DIGEST 123: You Don't Need That

I was struck by a comment that Felix Burrichter (PIN-UP EIC) made on Adam Charlap-Hyman and Laura Kugel’s Handle with Care podcast; he said he was not particularly interested in possessing things. I liked that—this idea that possession is one relation of many between you and things, that there’s no necessary reason to pursue that path over others when the beautiful object comes into view. Why not just look? Admire, adore even, but why possess? Felix, I think, is tutored by actually-existing possession, that is, not the fantasy of acquisition, but the reality of ownership—maintenance, storage, repair. The use-a-coaster stewardship that is the morning after reality of having sealed the deal.

The late Tran Duc Thao, a philosopher (in another life, I would have written a book about him), made the observation that ownership simply is the right of exclusion. It is not use, or enjoyment, which can swing free from ownership. Its positive content is simply that other people cannot use or enjoy it. Or: their use and enjoyment is a privilege you bestow. In this light, the real kink of ownership comes into view—the pleasure is all mine, but you can have it if I say so. The drive to own is, above all else, a means of warding off the pleasure of others.

Elsewhere on the podcast Adam had made the point that collectors are defined by some constitutive sense of an object that is missing. He basically spells out a whole psychoanalytic/Lacanian reading of the collector in permanent, sublimated search for a lost object, but he does so in terms of the phantasmatic “sofa that can fix a broken marriage.”

I feel like my own drive to acquire is kind of at a standstill. I have too much stuff. I’m planning a show in September so I’ve built up in inventory that is now just (expensively) sitting in storage. But for the time being, I really have no drive to buy. Which I guess means, more pleasure for you guys.

Anyway, listen to the podcast. It’s been a boon since Ezra Klein has become unlistenable these past few weeks (I don’t listen when he has politicians on because they are boring or artists/writers because he has middling taste and is invariably fawning). And as always, listen to KFM Country Radio. It’s the best podcast out there right now. Sam’s “Sammy’s Secrets” upgrades where he talks shit about people and names names is worth the $10 just FYI.

Finally: I’m doing a menswear report this season, btw, so email me if you have hot takes.

To the listings! BTW the listings behind the paywall are fun. Think about ponying up if you don’t already <3

1. Lee Friedlander Self-Portrait

Friedlander (b.1934), American, is one of my favorites. This is kind of funny, very beautiful, clearly American. Very Lee Friedlander.

2. Shell Table Box (1900)

I am so drawn to dumb little boxes that serve no purpose. I can see this gathering dust in my house and I still want it. Why is that?