Jan Verwoert - NICC

NICC - JV

Why Men Fail - NICC

May 19, 2015

Jan Verwoert is doing his thing. We find out about his Mum, his Dad, being the bass player and what it is he really really thinks, in a kind of post Gestalt stand up. When Woody met Larry it didn't really pan out, but for Verwoert his deep knowledge of arts+cultural theory and critical discourse doesn't become incomprehensible and his language is wonderfully considerate to the needs of the audience. It also makes him a generally welcomed speaker to diverse arts enclaves across the world, even if I did meet a few afterwards who slipped out. They didn't get all the insider references, because even for this level of generosity your English and critical engagement has to be pretty damn good. It's not really entertainment.

Having experienced his essayist, performative presentations to a few groups now, including fresh faced art students and wizened biennial lags who've seen it all, he has a gently commanding presence. So, just who is Jan Vorwoert and how does he sustain his tireless Quixotic journey to tilt at the windmills of our minds? A prolific writer, and much sought after arts professor with a full diary, his essays parade urgent and distinctive thematics of contemporary culture informed by the necessity of philosophical enquiry.

Windmills Of Your Mind - ML

If men learn, as boys, to ignore and deny seventy five percent of the world's emotional and psychological make up in order to focus on material achievement, success and head for the ultimate trip, failure, then it's about time someone told us why. Jan Verwoert is a consumate speaker and sometimes the delivery does get in the way, elaborations returned to and further elaborated upon but you can also see that he's trying to find the right combination. There's a fine line between preparation and innovation. He tells us, like an aside, about being such a man, a bad guest, who shuts himself away to prepare his talk that morning. But that's hard to believe, he must have already worked on the content extensively, so if he comes to town on the day and still needs to fine tune what he already must know, what type of obsession is it? Perhaps, already a twinned hydra of disaster and self expectation. There's no success quite like failure.

Unlocking the best sequence, getting to the right phrasing, interrogating ones own expression may be all part of the live reflexive process. For sure, he takes it very seriously and even as there are ripples of approving laughter he doesn't let himself off the hook, being part creator and part tormented subject of the critique. Did Larry David ever read Georges Perec? Should we wonder about this?

Cookie

We shouldn't be surprised that Vorwoert brings us to fulfilment via 'Curb' and the man who is known to be living on his own acceptable edge of everyone else's unacceptable edge. We are all Larry, but some are more Larry than others. I'm a big fan, as my partner will tell you. Inviting her to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm so early on in our relationship was a risk, but turned out to be one of the best things I could have done. When she started spontaneously laughing again and again I knew this really must be something.

Men tend to fail when they give up trying to take the real risks that may render themselves in a vulnerable light. To burn out or to fade away is part of the agonism. Maybe we did learn a bit more about the cultural psychosis of (westernised) men and the possibility of levelling with ourselves and others, and we may have had a glimpse of the “crack in everything”. (LC)

Last night I began reading a book of essays by Jean Cocteau, Diary of an Unknown, the first essay being titled, On Invisibility. It was a book I brought home when clearing my Mothers apartment last year and it begins, "It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance", and makes me think that when men fail they both lose their capacity for elegance and become rendered invisible. 

The big question being, like Larry, will we eventually make it? 

Larry + Susie