Paintings Gossip

Paintings gossip, or at least that is what Hito Steyerl thinks. In her essay, "The Language of Things," she responds to Walter Benjamin's premise that all things - even inanimate ones - communicate, and that these communications can be classed as language. Steyerl jokes that mountains converse, buildings chat, and paintings gossip. But neither she or Benjamin are interested in whether things speak eloquently or prattle, but in how humans translate the language of materials to suit their ideas. For Benjamin it is a translation into something magical; for Steyerl it is a translation into the language of politics and culture. Still, if we ask the question, do paintings gossip? the answer could be yes. In some cases they tell a story of their de-materialization in the aughts and re-materialization in this decade. In some cases they create loose truths about labor and economies. In some cases they talk about each other. In this paper I will discuss my own work in relation to Walter Benjamin's essay "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" to show how my work is materially driven to provoke a narrative of labor, class, gender, and cultural dynamics.