The City Builder by George Konrád

 

THE CITY BUILDER by George Konrád

For each paragraph in Konrád's novel, I will be noting the following:

Sentence or Fragment — the words that continues to resonate.

Image — the accompanying artwork.

Reflection — one or two sentences on why the pairing feels right.

CHAPTER ONE

"Things swarming out of the shelter of half-light begin their forced orbit."

Donald Judd, 15 Untitled Works in Concrete (1980–1984)

Both prose and sculpture suggest that form arises through fixed, invisible forces pressing into matter.

"Nightmares fighting out their battles on the eye's inner field of vision--a limp parcel stamped PERISHABLE."

Max Ernst, They have slept in the forest too long, 1926

As nightmarish as dreams can be, when we wake up, they are gone, gone.  Yet they continue to shape our waking lives from beneath the surface of consciousness.



"Snapshots are swimming in fixing solution and are then put in a bulging album that has a certificate of birth on its first page, of death on the last, and a name on the cover: mine. . . . Solid crusts, walls, and pressure-resistant edifices are shattered by the tremors of my consciousness."

Yves Tanguy, Multiplication of the Arcs, 1954

The image of the bulging album suggests a lifetime overflowing with accumulated nāma-rūpa—names and forms. For a builder, an architect, this abundance of forms is almost inevitable. Yet every photograph, every wall, every pressure-resistant edifice is ultimately fractured by the ongoing tremors of consciousness. What might the architect's psyche look like if it could be projected onto a screen? Tanguy's painting comes remarkably close.