M HKA Ensembles

Book, 21 cm x 14.9 cm, 319 p, language: English, publisher: Zürich/Dijon: JRP/Ringier/Les presses du réel, ISBN: 3-905701-02-2.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/626).

Literary synopsis

A compilation of non-fiction and fiction, the book has been structured by the artist with the subtle psychological and emotional rewards of the novel in mind.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

When in 1981 David Robbins first began publishing his writing he sensed that the subject matter which fascinated him--the convergence of the art and entertainment contexts, one of the main cultural stories of our time--would take many years to work through; at that time the book that eventually became The Velvet Grind began to take form in his mind. During the next two decades whenever Robbins identified or accepted a new writing project, whatever its form--interview, essay, satire--he had in mind that he was constructing a single cohesive volume. The form finally chosen, The Velvet Grind, is consciously organized as a kind of picaresque novel chronicling the author’s psychological and emotional journey through the realm of image makers.