The beneficial catastrophe of art does not refer to the simple disaster of the passage of time, it does not imitate the potential tragedy, but operates on the potential to develop a movement that identifies it and separates it as an unknown and alienating image. If the ruin produces a negative mental state, the work of art instead produces astonishment. Thaumàzein, astonishment, is the condition of aesthetic contemplation in front of a different reality, intensified by the introduction of an element that is alien to things. " every genuine work of art there is something that is not there "(TW Adorno) as demonstrated by Jimmie Durham with Elephant Skull Study # 2 (2012)."

-Achille Bonito Olive