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Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees
- GenresArt
Unknown Binding
Published February 2, 2009
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About the author
Lawrence Weschler
80 books123 followersLawrence Weschler, a graduate of Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz (1974), was for over twenty years (1981-2002) a staff writer at The New Yorker, where his work shuttled between political tragedies and cultural comedies. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award (for Cultural Reporting in 1988 and Magazine Reporting in 1992) and was also a recipient of Lannan Literary Award (1998).
His books of political reportage include The Passion of Poland (1984); A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (1990); and Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas (1998).
His “Passions and Wonders” series currently comprises Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin (1982); David Hockney’s Cameraworks (1984); Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder (1995); A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (1998) Boggs: A Comedy of Values (1999); Robert Irwin: Getty Garden (2002); Vermeer in Bosnia (2004); and Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences (February 2006). Mr. Wilson was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Everything that Rises received the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
Recent books include a considerably expanded edition of Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, comprising thirty years of conversations with Robert Irwin; a companion volume, True to Life: Twenty Five Years of Conversation with David Hockney; Liza Lou (a monograph out of Rizzoli); Tara Donovan, the catalog for the artist’s recent exhibition at Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art, and Deborah Butterfield, the catalog for a survey of the artist’s work at the LA Louver Gallery. His latest addition to “Passions and Wonders,” the collection Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative, came out from Counterpoint in October 2011.
Weschler has taught, variously, at Princeton, Columbia, UCSC, Bard, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, and NYU, where he is now distinguished writer in residence at the Carter Journalism Institute.
He recently graduated to director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, where he has been a fellow since 1991 and was director from 2001-2013, and from which base he had tried to start his own semiannual journal of writing and visual culture, Omnivore. He is also the artistic director emeritus, still actively engaged, with the Chicago Humanities Festival, and curator for New York Live Ideas, an annual body-based humanities collaboration with Bill T. Jones and his NY Live Arts. He is a contributing editor to McSweeney’s, the Threepeeny Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review; curator at large of the DVD quarterly Wholphin; (recently retired) chair of the Sundance (formerly Soros) Documentary Film Fund; and director of the Ernst Toch Society, dedicated to the promulgation of the music of his grandfather, the noted Weimar emigre composer. He recently launched “Pillow of Air,” a monthly “Amble through the worlds of the visual” column in The Believer.
(from www.lawrenceweschler.com)
His books of political reportage include The Passion of Poland (1984); A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (1990); and Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas (1998).
His “Passions and Wonders” series currently comprises Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin (1982); David Hockney’s Cameraworks (1984); Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder (1995); A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (1998) Boggs: A Comedy of Values (1999); Robert Irwin: Getty Garden (2002); Vermeer in Bosnia (2004); and Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences (February 2006). Mr. Wilson was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Everything that Rises received the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.
Recent books include a considerably expanded edition of Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, comprising thirty years of conversations with Robert Irwin; a companion volume, True to Life: Twenty Five Years of Conversation with David Hockney; Liza Lou (a monograph out of Rizzoli); Tara Donovan, the catalog for the artist’s recent exhibition at Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art, and Deborah Butterfield, the catalog for a survey of the artist’s work at the LA Louver Gallery. His latest addition to “Passions and Wonders,” the collection Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative, came out from Counterpoint in October 2011.
Weschler has taught, variously, at Princeton, Columbia, UCSC, Bard, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, and NYU, where he is now distinguished writer in residence at the Carter Journalism Institute.
He recently graduated to director emeritus of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, where he has been a fellow since 1991 and was director from 2001-2013, and from which base he had tried to start his own semiannual journal of writing and visual culture, Omnivore. He is also the artistic director emeritus, still actively engaged, with the Chicago Humanities Festival, and curator for New York Live Ideas, an annual body-based humanities collaboration with Bill T. Jones and his NY Live Arts. He is a contributing editor to McSweeney’s, the Threepeeny Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review; curator at large of the DVD quarterly Wholphin; (recently retired) chair of the Sundance (formerly Soros) Documentary Film Fund; and director of the Ernst Toch Society, dedicated to the promulgation of the music of his grandfather, the noted Weimar emigre composer. He recently launched “Pillow of Air,” a monthly “Amble through the worlds of the visual” column in The Believer.
(from www.lawrenceweschler.com)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 13, 2025
“Art existed not in objects but in a way of seeing”
His defense of car customization as a folk art. His “site conditioned” approach and creativity and courage to be original. His admiration of philosophy. His descriptions of Las Vegas sunsets.
His steadfast ambition, call for submission after call for submission, rejection after rejection, his childlike play like manner in which he submitted to them
His Getty garden. How I want to visit.
“All that drugs do—they don't heighten or brighten one's sense of perception—all they do is momentarily override all the habitual inhibitions to clear seeing which we manage to place in our way most of the rest of the time.”
“Reason/individual/intuition/feeling: Reason is the processing of our interface with our own subjective being.
Logic/community/intellect/mental: Logic is the processing of our interface with our objective constructs, our social being.”
“'EVER PRESENT, NEVER TWICE THE SAME' and on the other 'EVER CHANGING, NEVER LESS THAN WHOLE.”
His defense of car customization as a folk art. His “site conditioned” approach and creativity and courage to be original. His admiration of philosophy. His descriptions of Las Vegas sunsets.
His steadfast ambition, call for submission after call for submission, rejection after rejection, his childlike play like manner in which he submitted to them
His Getty garden. How I want to visit.
“All that drugs do—they don't heighten or brighten one's sense of perception—all they do is momentarily override all the habitual inhibitions to clear seeing which we manage to place in our way most of the rest of the time.”
“Reason/individual/intuition/feeling: Reason is the processing of our interface with our own subjective being.
Logic/community/intellect/mental: Logic is the processing of our interface with our objective constructs, our social being.”
“'EVER PRESENT, NEVER TWICE THE SAME' and on the other 'EVER CHANGING, NEVER LESS THAN WHOLE.”
June 7, 2024
The addition of more photographs and a set of new chapters makes this edition worth reading if one has only read the first edition. Seeing Irwin's work in landscaping and architecture help bring home what he was aiming at with his paintings and installations.
February 11, 2025
As the sub-title says, 30 years of conversations with the artist, Robert Irwin. Very well written and thoughtful. Interesting insights into art and perception and public art in particular.
April 27, 2025
Essential reading for artists and anyone interested in how we perceive the world. Also, fascinating insights into Irwin’s process and artistic evolution.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews