"No ideas but in things"

In a November 13, 2015 Momus post editor Sky Goodden asks Liz Magor questions, and Liz responds “simply” and “with uncanny clarity,” according to Sky, but with dollops of mystery and intrigue. Mystery because I am curious to know how Liz arrives at what she says; intrigue because it is more than that -- more than just wanting to know more.

I Googled “Liz Magor” and “William Carlos Williams”, but nothing came up. What was I thinking? I was thinking of Williams’s line from the 1927 version of his multi-volume poem, Paterson, “No ideas but in things” and I wonder if Liz has ever used it.

Liz is disparaging of ideas. Of them she says, “Ideas are a dime a dozen.” But that can't be what she means. Concepts maybe – Conceptual Art -- but I am not buying ideas. Was it not her idea to “flip” her desire for that which she doesn’t have in order to “idolize” that which she does -- like the chair she was sitting on when the idea first came to her? This is what I find so intriguing.

(photo by Glenn Baglo)