A Boorishly Fashionable Regression, aka Neo-Conceptualism

Review of Notes on Conceptualisms by Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman (Ugly Duckling Presse)

By Maxwell Clark

'Topographical Map', by Maxwell Clark (acrylic on canvass)

I can barely bring myself to read this mucky tome of yet such slimness. What either is being induced or deduced rigorously or affectively in this work? I cannot really tell. It’s a very weak piece of writing.

                “Words are objects.” (pg. 14)

Ok. Words are also expressions, aka the intercourse between subjective “faces” or unique individuals, i.e. non-objective, or even the ground of all posterior objectivity.

                “All conceptual writing is allegorical writing.” (pg. 15)

Ok. Is that an allegorical sentence? Is its secret, hidden meaning actually that its authors are weak and unpersuasive rhetoricians? Why bring in allegory in such a cursory and disjointed, much less strongly argued in some salient sense, kind of way?

                I will not further bore and mistreat my audience with quotations from this work (and please forgive the venom of that remark, although I refuse to erase it). Nor will I bore them with any more of my justly spilt bile. Please forgive, excuse, my apologies. Adios. Selah.