On Refusal, Contingency, and Your Duty as an Artist

— One of the most useful things I’ve read lately comes once again from the book Faith, Hope and Carnage , a conversation between Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan. Cave speaks about the loss of his son, as a condition that infuses everything. He hopes that in the records he has made, that there is “an audacity in the face of things, a kind of reckless refusal to submit to the condition of the world.” It…