“My entire poetic production is founded upon Wittgenstein’s later writings. Although it has sat on my shelf for decades, I never actually read the
Tractatus
. But I always loved the idea of it; I am a conceptual writer, after all.”–– Kenneth Goldsmith
A major philosophical work, one of the most important written in the twentieth century,
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
is Ludwig Wittgenstein’s attempt to conquer reality through logic. Written as a series of precisely numbered propositions, it elucidates the relationship of language to logic and to reality, ending with an infamous statement of breathtaking clarity: “What can be said at all, can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over to silence”.
Originally conceived as part of ERIS’s
Marginalia
series of hand-annotated classics, this special edition consists of sixty-two original artworks inspired by the famous tract. Collages, drawings, sketches, handwritten comments, blacked-out and blanched text, shopping receipts and scans-within-scans—these are some of the techniques that appear in the pages of this book.
Kenneth Goldsmith, on his maiden voyage into the unforgiving rigour of Wittgenstein’s
, shows no appetite for timidity. His works, placed side-by-side with the original text, reveal the breadth and depth not just of its original author’s genius, but also of the intervening artist’s creative fervour. This is a unique book, beautifully presented in large bound format, and including a handwritten afterword by the artist.