Index Broken / 20002007 / plaster, iron / 37 x 12 x 10 cm
One might also suppose that Ponge, as he grew older, no longer possessed the freshness of seeingwriting access to things; the slipping out of the object is a consequence of the weakening expressive power (hence the expression obsession). Maybe both are true; Over the course of time, experiences and texts, early (relative) innocence is overshadowed (and weakened or even strengthened?) by selfconsciousness as the consciousness of what has already been created, making naivete playful, often an ironic naivety that generate more and more comic effects. Ironic naivety: pretend that nothing has been said, nothing seen, explored, described. We do not live in the Renaissance age: Ponge has a keen awareness of the unstoppable progress of human knowledge that makes it unmanageable to the individual. For biographical and historical reasons, he, the individual, is forced to the irony of the asif. (Leopold Federmaier on Francis Ponge)