Mere Materialism: Aesthetics of Attrition in Paint, Text, and Paper

Mere Materialism challenges us to recognize a neglected, transhistorical aesthetics of loss. Against the affirmative materialisms prevalent in cultural criticism today, mere materialism in art and literature documents the slow, ordinary violence of routine physical deterioration, including art’s own. It inhabits a space where loss can remain nothing but loss, without having to serve any productive or redemptive purpose.

Attending to material surfaces and the processes of attrition Goldsmith ...