“The gold smears also suggest other more fecund matter that Tombs probably did not have in mind. In order to get behind L’Occupation’s facade of power, Dominique Laporte’s Histoire de la merde (Prologue) is a handy tool. An improper admixture of Marx and Freud that was written independently but contemporaneously with O’Doherty’s white cube essays, Laporte’s text rephrases Freud’s “Where id was, so shall ego be” as “Where shit was, so gold shall be,” suggesting that in both psychology and the economy that which is repressed returns in a sublimated form. Laporte examines the history of the rise of the Modern Capitalist State and Subject and determines that it rests on a foundation of the elimination and the denial of human bodily waste. Concerns in L’Occupation then, if they are linked with French history, can be traced back to the year 1539, when edicts from King Francis I began processes that would aim to not only purify the French language but also purge the excrement, waste and offal from the streets of Paris. The beauty and order made visible in displays of royal wealth, as in the Palace of Versailles, ironically rests on taxation and profit from the raw and filthy resources of the nation and colonized territories kept far from the seat of power. By using Histoire de la merde as a guide, one can in addition to bringing in its wider historical context, draw out the stinking underside of a hygienic looking white cube gallery fastidiously adorned with gold.”
> Michael Davidge, review of L’Occupation in C Magazine 118, Summer 2013.
“This is no ordinary exhibition of painting, printmaking, photography, or sculpture by one or more persons … it is a landmark collection of works that is an exploration of the art of graphic design in the hands of a master.”
> Thaddeus Holownia, opening remarks, Robert Tombs: Index. Graphic Works 1985 – 2015, Owens Art Gallery, October 2, 2015.
Donna Torres
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