Art Metropole

#06219

To Live in the South, One Has to be a Scar Lover

Date

2011

Publisher

1646 Project Space

Format

Artists' Books

Size

15 × 21 × 0.5 cm

Length

60 

Description

Texts— Agnes Andeweg, Hal Crowther, Maxime Lachaud, Tom Patterson, Maarten Zwiers

As the team of 1646 we are proud to present the publication To Live in the South, One Has to Be a Scar Lover, edited by curator Maaike Gouwenberg and artist Joris Lindhout. It is the first publication of a long-term research project on “Gothic” as a cultural strategy. By looking at Gothic traditions in literature from different countries, Gouwenberg and Lindhout try to formulate an understanding of what Gothic can do, culturally and socially, in a society. Their investigation begins with a Gothic practice, that originated in the Southern States of North America, characterised as Southern Gothic.

Gouwenberg’s and Lindhout’s field research included a road trip in the autumn of 2010. They looked at the current social and political changes in the Southern States. They sought out classical Southern Gothic literary elements, like the sublime, grotesque characters, wild nature, religious fervour and nostalgia, in the forms of art, music and literature in the region. They also kept a discerning eye out for newer,

contemporary manifestations of Southern Gothic. The writer whose work guided them through their research has been, and still is, Harry Crews. His novels get to the core of the often harsh life in the South during the late 70s. His saying ‘everything is stories and stories is everything’ became the basis of their own understanding of the South.

For To Live in the South, One Has to Be a Scar Lover, five specialists have been invited to elaborate on distinctive aspects of the Southern States in relation to the Southern Gothic. In the introductory text of this publication, Gouwenberg and Lindhout delve into the contemporary Southern Gothic and, while describing its different aspects, they introduce the five writers.

To Live in the South, One Has to Be a Scar Lover is published as a double bill with the exhibition in 1646 entitled “What the Modern Era Has Gained in Civility it Has Lost in Poetic Inspiration.”

—1646 Den Haag

ISBN— 978-94-6190-238-2

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