“This is why Warhol is not part of the history of art. He is, quite simply, part of the world. He does not represent it; he is a fragment of it: a fragment in the pure state. This is why, seen from the viewpoint of art, he can be disappointing. Seen as a refraction of our world, he is perfectly self-evident. Like the world itself: looked at from the angle of meaning, the world is thoroughly disappointing. From the angle of appearance and detail, it is perfectly selfevident. And so is the Warhol machine, that extraordinary machine for filtering the world in its material self-evidence.

No one can claim to describe that machine. That would imply a literal complicity, a machinic complicity, with Warhol. Now, not everyone has the good fortune to be a machine.”