By Bergotte Ivan Turgenev is the poet of the moment that has already passed. His novels and stories are pervaded by a melancholy so precise and so gracefully carried that it takes time to recognise it as a philosophical position rather than a temperamental one. But it is a position: the claim that the humanContinue reading “The Human Condition According to Turgenev”
Category Archives: Essay
Rei Kawakubo – Comme des Garçons
Rei Kawakubo did not arrive in Paris in 1981 to show clothes. She arrived to make an argument — about the body, about beauty, about what a woman was and was not obliged to be. The argument has not stopped since.
What’s So Special About Nick Drake
Nick Drake made three albums between 1969 and 1972, sold almost none of them, and died at twenty-six of an antidepressant overdose in the bedroom of his parents’ house in rural Warwickshire.
Would You Live It Again? Who We Are According to Friedrich Nietzsche
He has been claimed by fascists, by bodybuilders, by management consultants, and by every nineteen-year-old who has ever felt misunderstood. He would have been appalled by all of them. What Nietzsche actually said — about God, about values, about the self, and about whether you would choose your life again if you had to chooseContinue reading “Would You Live It Again? Who We Are According to Friedrich Nietzsche”
Paris in September: Vincent Beaurin at Galerie Poggi
Vincent Beaurin trained as a silversmith, worked as a designer, blew paint at canvases, and eventually found his way to the disc — the simplest form available, saturated with the colour of the last light before the sun disappears. A retrospective profile ahead of his show at Galerie Poggi.
Yayoi Kusama
Encounters · No. 15 – This was written before Kusama’s passing, and originally scheduled for a November release. Due to current events, we have moved things around. You can read her obituary here. Infinity, One Dot at a Time Yayoi Kusama has been covering every surface she can reach with dots and nets and flowersContinue reading “Yayoi Kusama”
The Reel Argument: Whit Stillman
By Bergotte Whit Stillman has made only five feature films in thirty-five years, yet they constitute one of the most coherent bodies of work in contemporary American cinema. They take place in worlds that either barely exist or have already disappeared: Manhattan débutante society, Americans abroad in the final years of the Cold War,Continue reading “The Reel Argument: Whit Stillman”
The Reel Argument: Andrei Tarkovsky
By Bergotte Andrei Tarkovsky is the filmmaker most often recommended and least often watched, and the reason for this is a lie — a well-intentioned, widely repeated lie that has done more damage to his reputation than any honest criticism could. The lie is that his films are difficult. They are not difficult. They areContinue reading “The Reel Argument: Andrei Tarkovsky”
We Will Always Love You, Dolly
By Bergotte Dolly Rebecca Parton, January 19, 1946 — August 25, 2026 Dolly Parton died yesterday in Nashville, Tennessee, after a brief battle with cancer. She was eighty years old. Sixteen months earlier, she had lost Carl Dean, her husband of nearly six decades, and she had said openly that she had not taken careContinue reading “We Will Always Love You, Dolly”
The Human Condition According to Gogol
By Bergotte There is a moment in Nikolai Gogol’s story The Nose when a government official named Kovalyov discovers that his nose has left his face, dressed itself in a uniform of higher rank than his own, and is travelling around St Petersburg attending church services and paying social calls. Kovalyov’s attempts to recover hisContinue reading “The Human Condition According to Gogol”
My World of Interiors 