Table Talk: Notes on the Schizo-Table

Nevena Ekimova: Schizophrenic Table (A Model) (2020)

Photo by Rosina Pencheva (ed.) [1]

'The schizo-table desires nothing but to continue its own production forever ...' 

 

 

I. 

 

Some readers might recall that I discussed Not Vital's Self-Portrait as a Table (2025) in a post published last month: click here. 

 

Well, six weeks after first encountering this work, it continues to invite further reflection on the role played by tables in art; both as visual symbol and material object.

 

I love the way that a piece of everyday furniture designed for human use can be deterritorialised from its functionality and everyday context; can seduce the viewer and enter into a becoming with them.    

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, I'm not the first or only one to be fascinated by tables in art. 

 

Agnese Skabe, for instance, has written a short essay exploring how various artists have depicted tables on canvas and what their meanings are (be they political, spiritual, or psychological in nature).

 

It's an informative piece, although some of her sentences contain ideas and phrases that I find troublesome. For example: "The table serves as a significant element that reveals the relationships and values that shape the essence of human life" [2].

 

Relying as it does on foundational assumptions about fixed significance and human essence is philosophically problematic in and of itself, but the sentence also denies the autonomy of the table as object; it exists only in servitude and is defined by what it reveals about us rather than its own being [3]. 

 

Thus, whilst Skabe's work on the role of mundane and sacred objects in traditional and modern painting is fairly comprehensive, for me, the table only really becomes interesting when it is conceived as more than merely a site of shared human experience and human interaction; when it has something a little schizo about it ... 

 

 

III. 

Despite being born in Belgium, Henri Michaux was a quintessentially French avant-garde poet, writer and painter. 

 

A pioneer of psychedelic art produced under the influence of mescaline and LSD, his radical approach to language and the mind earned him praise from some of the leading literary figures of his era; from Gide to Ginsberg, and Borges to Burroughs. 

 

Michaux also maintained close friendships with several philosophers, particularly Emil Cioran, and inspired numerous visual artists, including our very own Francis Bacon.    

 

In 1965, a jury of his peers awarded him the prestigious Grand prix national des Lettres. True to his uncompromising principles, however, Michaux refused to accept the award, preferring to remain a pure outsider - a gesture that only amplified his legendary status among fellow artists. 

 

But what has this got to do with tables? 

 

Well, in 1966 he published Les Grandes Épreuves de l'esprit et les innombrables petites - a book translated into English by Richard Howard as The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones (1974) - in which the following astonishing description of what he called a schizophrenic table appears:

 

"Once noticed, it continued to occupy one's mind. It even persisted, as it were, in going about its own business. . . . The striking thing was that it was neither simple nor really complex ... or constructed according to a complicated plan. Instead, it had been desimplified in the course of its carpentering. . .. As it stood, it was a table of additions, much like certain schizophrenic's drawings, described as 'overstuffed,' and if finished it was only in so far as there was no way of adding anything more to it, the table having become more and more of an accumulation, less and less a table. . . . It was not intended for any specific purpose, for anything one expects of a table. Heavy, cumbersome, it was virtually immovable. One didn't know how to handle it (mentally or physically). Its top surface, the useful part of the table, having been gradually reduced, was disappearing, with so little relation to the clumsy framework that the thing did not strike one as a table, but as some freak piece of furniture, an unfamiliar instrument . . . for which there was no purpose. A dehumanized table, nothing cozy about it, nothing 'middle-class,' nothing rustic, nothing countrified, not a kitchen table or a work table. A table which lent itself to no function, self-protective, denying itself to service and communication alike. There was something stunned about it, something petrified. Perhaps it suggested a stalled engine." [4]  

 

 

IV. 

 

What on earth are we to make of this? 

 

Fortunately, Deleuze and Guattari are on hand to help us out ... 

 

Quoting the above passage early in L'anti-Œdipe (1972), they point out that the table is schizophrenic because it keeps adding elements to itself until it ceases to function as a table altogether, thereby rejecting its usefulness (and servitude) to the human being and producing its own non-commodifiable reality. 

 

These extra elements - at least if Not Vital is to be believed - include ears and, who knows, perhaps other dis-organ-ised (or indeterminate) organs will one day sprout; if a table has legs, why shouldn't it have arms; if a table has ears, why shouldn't it also have eyes all over, just like the cherubim of whom Ezekiel speaks [5]?  

 

The schizo-table isn't an object of furniture that one might find flat-packed in IKEA; it's what Deleuze and Guattari call a desiring-machine - full of the restless, active, connective energy of desire and happily going about its business, even if continually breaking down; for desiring-machines "work only when they break down" [6].  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Nevena Ekimova is a Bulgarian artist, currently based in her hometown of Gabrovo. Rosina Pencheva is a photographer and producer of cultural projects, based in Sofia, though originally also from Gabrovo.

 

[2] Agnese Skabe, 'The Table in Art: Symbolism and Interpretations', published - somewhat suspiciously - in the Journal of Environmental Science and Agricultural Research, Vol. 4, Issue 1 (OASK Publishers, 2026), pp. 1-4. 

      I am not providing a link as I suspect this is not a peer-reviewed academic journal, but is, in fact, a predatory publication (i.e., one which, whilst granting readers open access, prints just about anything providing the author pays a fee) and I don't want to have Blogger remove the entire post on the grounds that I have (inadvertently) violated their community guidelines.    

 

[3] For Skabe, when an artist paints a table - or, presumably, any other object - they are essentially telling us something about themselves or offering an interpretation of human life in general. In a paragraph I find particularly objectionable, full as it is of anthropocentric conceit, she writes: 

      "Philosophically speaking, the table becomes a symbolic space where the person encounters their own existence [...] and derives meaning from being. The Table's presence in art reveals our inner world [...] It is a metaphor for the order of our lives, our efforts to create structure and meaning in the world. Just as philosophy seeks to understand the essence of humanity and the structure of the world, so too does art, through the symbol of the table, offer a deeper perspective on human existence." 

 

[4] Henri Michaux, The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones, trans. Richard Howard (1974), pp. 125-127. 

      Quoted by Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1984), pp. 6-7.

 

[5] See Ezekiel 10:12 where we are told that the cherubim - God's celestial guardians - are covered in eyes, including their backs, their hands, and their wings.  

 

[6] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus ... p. 8.  

 

 

On Nietzsche's Moustache

Not Vital: Nietzsche's Schnauz (1993)

Aluminium (70 x 140 x 40 cm)

Image via Galerie Nordenhake

 

'Thus the gentlest and most reasonable of men can, if he wears a large moustache, 

sit as it were in its shade and feel safe there ...' [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Understanding as he did the importance of first impressions, Nietzsche highly valued the protective and deceptive nature of his exuberantly styled facial hair. 

 

He even noted in one of his middle period books that a formidable moustache allows a gentle soul to mask their sensitive nature and be perceived as an "easily angered and occasionally violent" [2] military type and thus treated with more respect than is often shown to mild-mannered university professors. 

 

 

II.  

 

The style of 'tache adopted by Nietzsche as soon as hormones allowed, is known as a walrus moustache. It is characterised by thick, bushy whiskers that droop over the mouth and resemble the whiskers of the large marine mammal from which it takes its name. 

 

Nietzsche, of course, was not unusual in choosing to have a Schnurrbart of this type, as they were extremely popular among men in the latter half of the 19th century when he was doing his thing (revaluing values and so on).  

 

Soldiers, scientists, politicians, and poets - not just rogue German philosophers - favoured this rugged style regarded as a symbol of masculinity and, in Poland, a mark of nobility and traditionalism [3].     

 

 

III. 

 

Now, I have to confess, personally, I don't like this moustache - hate it, in fact.  

 

Nevertheless, I do like Nietzsche and I am interested at the moment in the work of the contemporary Swiss artist Not Vital who, in 1993, created a surreal aluminium sculpture titled Nietzsche's Schnauz ... 

 

Retrospectively asked about the piece in a conversation with the curator, critic and art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist - a longtime friend of the artist - Vital recalled:  

 

"When I first went to the Nietzsche-Haus in Sils Maria, what impressed me most about the death mask, drawings and photographs of Nietzsche, was this moustache that grew bigger throughout his life. In the end, you couldn't even see his mouth. That was fascinating: that this moustache would take over his face. So I made a sculpture of his moustache, and placed it in his bed. [4]

 

By isolating the facial hair, Vital's sculpture - part of a wider series exploring memory, identity, and the blurring of human and non-human forms - enables the moustache to assume a kind of object-autonomy. 

 

And, hearing Vital discuss how the 'tache appeared to take over Nietzsche's face, one is put in mind of the parasitoid entity (Manumala noxhydria) that attaches to the face of Kane (played by John Hurt) in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979).

 

Fortunately, the facehugging moustache didn't prove fatal to its host and, according to Nietzsche's own philosophy, whatever didn't kill him made him stronger ... [5] 

      

Notes

 

[1] Nietzsche, Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge University Press, 1997), IV. 381, p. 171. 

 

[2] Ibid.

 

[3] Some readers may recall that Nietzsche often claimed descent from an aristocratic Polish family (although there seems to be no genealogical evidence available to support his claim). 

 

[4] Not Vital, in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist (14 April 2021). The transcript can be read on the Thaddaeus Ropac (London) website: click here. The interview also featured in Wallpaper and can be read on their website by clicking here.  

[5] See Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 'Maxims and Arrows' (8). 

 

 

Readers who enjoyed this short post might like to check out an excellent essay on Nietzsche's moustache available on the website nietzschesbody.com. The site is administered by Robrecht and I'm guessing this is the independent Nietzsche scholar, translator, and cultural critic Robrecht Vandemeulebroecke (apologies to both parties if I'm mistaken). 

      What this essay does well is bring home the fact that Nietzsche knew his moustache was distinctive and would become iconic: "Though not exactly unique, Nietzsche's whiskers were uncommon enough in intellectual circles to become something of a trademark, a fact of which he was not unaware." 

 

Reflections on Not Vital's Self-Portrait as a Table (2025)

Not Vital: Self-portrait as a Table (2025) 

Marble 115 x 65 x 50 cm [1]

 

'The table as autonomous object is not merely the sum of its parts 

and the ear is not merely a passive cavity or vacuous opening ...' 

 

 

I. 

 

Sometimes, you go to a gallery for one artist and leave haunted by the work of another ...  

 

So it was I returned to Thaddaeus Ropac for the opening of a show by Liza Lou full of previously shared expectations [2] and, while her hyper-colourful fusion of glass beads and oil paint didn't disappoint, it was the concurrent exhibition by Swiss artist Not Vital [3] - bringing together a selection of sculptures with his latest series of painted self-portraits - that captured my curiosity. 

 

Specifically, it was his obsession with the human ear as a motif that I found intriguing ...    

 

 

II.

 

As the title of his exhibition indicates, Vital doesn't want people to merely look at his work, but listen also to what it is telling us about the art of representation and the "intersections between painting, sculpture and architecture" [4]. 

 

And in order to encourage us to attend with our ears rather than just view with our eyes, it's the former that feature prominently on several of his works; playfully protruding from canvases or, in the case of his Self-portrait as a Table (2025), adorning a polished marble surface.   

 

As a Deleuzian philosopher and forniphile who has an interest in the becoming-object of the human being, I naturally found this piece irresistible. 

 

It isn't just art as furniture (or vice versa), but a zone of indiscernibility; i.e., a space wherein boundaries dissolve, differences blur, and transformative connections proliferate. Just as the artist becomes table, the table starts to sprout ears and become a new type of listening device.  

 

 

III. 

 

The English physicist A. S. Eddington famously argued there were two types of table: the tangible everyday object that we eat our dinner off; and the scientific or quantum table that is understood conceptually in terms of fast-moving atoms and empty spaces [5].  

 

But Not Vital presents a third table; the table we discover in art and which excites the interest of object-oriented ontologists like Graham Harman; the table that is neither reduced downward to invisible particles, nor upward to a series of properties, effects, and functions [6]. 

This table we encounter in art lies somewhere between (and beyond) these two. Picasso envisioned it from multiple simultaneous perspectives [7] and Vital - amusingly - attaches ears to it. The key thing, however, is this: great artists aren't content to pull up a chair at just any old table; they want one that stands in the mytho-poetic fourth dimension (i.e., the realm of true relatedness between all things and into which every straight line curves) [8]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Finally, I'd like to say something about the ears sticking out from the surface of Vital's marble table, forming "irrational, dreamlike anatomies" [9] and prompting us to wonder why it is that since a table already possesses legs, it shouldn't also one day grow lugs ...  

There's something rather touching about the thought of old-fashioned (analogue) objects evolving the Momo-like ability to listen with genuine, time-giving sympathy and not merely the artificial intelligence of Alexa.

 

We desperately need a new ethics of listening, so that we might learn once more to acknowledge (and liberate) the Other in their otherness. It's poignant to imagine that Vital's table doesn't only encourage us to attend to it, but is attentive to us and prepared to lend an ear.   

 

Although, having said that, there's always the danger that a table with ears open to every sound and sigh might eventually become monstrous ... 

Notes

 

[1] This work by Not Vital is included in the exhibition Listening + Looking (10 April - 23 May 2026), at Thaddaeus Ropac (London): click here for details. 

 

[2] See the post dated 19 March that I published in anticipation of Lou's FAQ exhibition which is also showing at Thaddaeus Ropac (London) from 10 April until 23 May 2026: click here.

 

[3] A comprehensive biography and CV for Not Vital is available on the Thaddaeus Ropac website: click here.  

      In brief, he was born in Switzerland in 1948, but has spent much of his adult life travelling and living in foreign countries including China, Brazil, and the USA and his work is inspired by his nomadic lifestyle. Vital studied visual arts in Paris from 1968–71 and then moved to New York in 1974, where he began his artistic career: 

      "Exploring the boundaries between abstract and figurative forms, his work is marked by a particularly intimate relationship with materials, including plaster, steel, marble, ceramic and organic matter. [...] The physicality of his approach, combined with an innate understanding of his chosen materials' essential properties, results in visually challenging works that are often destabilising in their striking scale and presence."

 

[4] This from p. 1 of the Thaddaeus Ropac press release for Listening + Looking - click here. One assumes it was written by Nina Sandhaus (Head of Press). 

[5] Eddington proposed his two table theory in his Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Jan-March 1927. These lectures formed the basis of his seminal text The Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge University Press, 1929). See the Introduction, pp. xi-xix. 

      Readers who are interested, can find this work published online as a Project Gutenberg ebook (2013): click here.  

 

[6] See Graham Harman, The Third Table / Der Dritte Tisch, Number 085 in the dOCUMENTA (13) series '100 Notes - 100 Thoughts / 100 Notizen - 100 Gedanken', (Hatje Cantz, 2012). See my synopsis and critique of Harman's essay published on Torpedo the Ark (10 Mar 2018): click here.  

[7] I'm referring here of course to Picasso's 1919 collage La table. Created in a Cubist manner, the work attempted to represent the object on a two-dimensional canvas from all sides at once, by breaking it down into geometric components: click here. 

 

[8] See D. H. Lawrence writing in 'Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 347-363. 

 

[9] Thaddaeus Ropac press release for Listening + Looking, p. 2.