More on silence

José Gil was interviewed yesterday on the occasion of giving his last class. Here´s a passage:

“[…] We lose a necessary density in perceiving the work of art. When we exhibit and sell those statuettes… We approve. It´s the democratization of culture, etc. But I can guarantee that we lose a density and richness of perception. I mean, we lose the silence. And we need silence. And this is not very profound stuff. What´s terrible is that they´ve become very profound stuff! They are obvious things! I remember a friend who´s an ethnologist, french, working, I think, in Senegal. One of the people from the region where he was doing his fieldwork would go to Paris, knock on his door, get in, sit down and it seems that he would stay for five hours without saying a word. Five hours later, he would get up and say goodbye and leave. It´s a different way of being. He had done what was necessary: he had regained the friendship, in silence. Silence speaks – there must also exist a language of silence… So, we are talking about simple things that, suddenly, have become esoteric.[...]”

I liked that. I would have liked to meet the man from Senegal. And the man who was considered one of the top 25 thinkers of the world and who seems to appreciate the language of silence. He gave his last class yesterday.