InVisible Culture • Issue 33: After Douglas Crimp

After Douglas Crimp
Questionnaire Response:Gaëtan ThomasGaëtan Thomas
Published on: Jan 05, 2022
DOI: 10.47761/494a02f6.d3199760
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)

InVisible Culture • Issue 33: After Douglas Crimp

After Douglas Crimp Questionnaire Response: Gaëtan Thomas

Answer Louise Lawler’s question in October: “What would Douglas Crimp say?”“I love Louise!”
Imagine an alternative space to museums. Describe what this space mightlook like.
As I translated Douglas’ essays into French, I tried to imagine the alternative
downtown art spaces in which he was invested during the 1970s and 1980s. This world
feels so remote but I feel I can say with some certainty that it was less controlled bymoney and the desire for immediate recognition.
I personally enjoy spending time in encyclopedic museums and wish there were morepalace-like complexes transformed into accessible, public, art-filled spaces. As acollege student in Paris, I remember feeling most comfortable reading in one of theLouvre’s covered patios than in my tiny, claustrophobic apartment. Ironically, one myfirst conversations with Douglas – when we met in Paris – was about the Louvre, amuseum he hadn’t visited in decades. A few years later, when the Buchholz Galleryorganized a show around him in Berlin, we visited the Gemäldegalerie together (alongwith Jonathan Flatley) and spent time discussing the eccentricities and imagination ofCranach’s Fountain of Youth! At some point during our visit, he said he loved Poussin,
something that stayed with me. I find myself seeking out Poussin’s paintings inmuseums during the last few years, perhaps as a way to continue this conversation
with Douglas…
Share an anecdote or memory you have of Douglas. Or, if you had theopportunity to share anything with Douglas now, what would it be?
This might be a strange thing to say, but I would explain to him how difficult it was toanswer questions from a French journalist working on his obituary. I felt unable toprovide a comprehensive and coherent account of his life and work, which was being
asked of me in this moment of sadness. I think I internalized something of the spirit of1980s critique in resisting the reproduction of narratives around singularity andindividual genius. I’d love to have a good laugh with him as I recount the memory ofthis awkward, and slightly frustrating, moment!
In Before Pictures, Douglas describes navigating between academia, life
outside, and how each informs the other. Discuss leisure, and how academic

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InVisible Culture • Issue 33: After Douglas Crimp

After Douglas Crimp Questionnaire Response: Gaëtan Thomas

work reflects personal life, or vice versa.
I try to insert what I personally enjoy into my work as a historian, but it’s a process oftranslation, imperfect and involving patience in finding the right moment to bring
one’s own experiences into the text.
Share academic models that might push against linearity. Academia tends tobe fairly linear, while dance is often fluid (unless it’s a line dance). Translate
the linearity of academia into the non-linearity of a dance, and then transposethat non-linear dance back into the “linear” form of a diagram. In brief,submit a response as a score for a dance piece, or provide a diagram for adance.
Non-linear trajectories in academia are actually more common than one might think!
Many thinkers move through subjects, periods, even disciplines quite freely during thecourse of their careers. The work of intellectual biography and memorialization
organizes these heterogenous productions into linear narratives, going back to mypoint of tension with the journalist writing Douglas’ obituary. I think the meandering
pursuit of ideas and knowledge produces its own atonal score, if only we would listen!
In the spirit of Douglas’s work with ACT UP: How do you understand therelationship between activism, arts, and academia?
It rarely happens, but when it does it must feel exhilarating, which makes it worth
trying and trying again…

Gaëtan Thomas is a historian and currently a postdoctoral fellow at Sciences Po, Paris.
He has edited, translated and introduced in French a selection of essays by Douglas
Crimp (Le point du jour, 2016) and Craig Owens (Même pas l’hiver, forthcoming).
Click here to return to the other questionnaire responses.

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