Artforum

Artforum by César Aira (2014) Seemingly a series of essays about the author’s obsession with collecting “Artforum” magazine, this is really a short novel, a work of poetic fiction centered around this obsession, with that expensive, square format periodical. It’s, first of all, very funny, also very weird, but deep down full of ideas that lead to other ideas and asks a lot of questions. It’s the first book I’ve read by César Aria, as I only recently became aware of his books—there are a lot of them, and one could imagine a similar obsession with collecting his works. In fact, it’s hard to deny that this tiny paperback volume, published by New Directions, with a photo of a stack of Artforums on the cover—is part of the appeal. He covers a lot of ideas in a few pages—one is the sometimes magical quality of an object. Another part I particularly liked was about when he discovered a huge cache of the magazines for sale—and getting caught up in things like their relationship with the former owner, and whether to buy only one, or a few, or all of them. I’ve had the experience of being on a longtime quest for something, and then suddenly there is an abundance—and the weird feeling you get from that. Also, just our relationship with print medium in general—how there is the conflict of being interested in both the content and the object itself—and admitting that sometimes it’s more about the object. And there is more, much more. I might even read this again—it’s short.