In “A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments” Roland Barthes attempts to articulate the discourse of a loving subject which for him is a speech of extreme solitude, since the loving object is always absent. The dearth of the object. The presence of the absence, of the other body. Which is constant. And devastating.

However. What remains when all done? When all gone? What is the residue of the lover’s discourse? What does the absence of the absence look like? The words shatter. The speech is riddled, made transparent.

Is there an unnullable least? The last words, the inevitable last words. The ones that can’t fail. The ones one will hold on to. And possibly start from there in order to utter a new discourse. Because in the end of all resignation it is affirmation.

Presented at the Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz in January 2018.