The Malady of the Century
Jon Leon
“Jon Leon has crafted a cold and funny porno-dystopia that 'sends up’ poetry while also behaving like a strict modernist manifesto—a Stein or Pound reveille, with P.T. Barnum bravado, making it new. Reading The Malady of the Century, I think of the dungeon (Marquis de Sade and Dennis Cooper); I also think of the penthouse (Joan Didion and Frederick Seidel). Leon’s voice—if it is indeed a voice, or his—is charmingly post-sentiment; he evacuates poetry’s resources in order to stage, with hilarious, memorable, deadpan showmanship, a bildungsroman of the artist-as-void. Leon’s subject is the rôle of the 'poet,’ a Rimbaud with the resumé of a Russ Meyer.”
—Wayne Koestenbaum
“This thick work is so blindingly over-the-top in how it hits on all the stuff the kids love these days, stuff that comes from a real place of daring integrity but can also land like callowness taken as a drug. Either way it’s great, I inject it. Porn-intellect-fashion-longing and I heart flat-affect. Easy to imitate, hard to aspire to, and I’m trying it now.”
—Rebecca Wolff
“Baudelaire instructed that 'the dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep in front of the mirror.’ Crossing platforms, from mirror to various pulsing LED screens and back, Jon Leon taps sublimity, rousing our daily patois to orgasm without interruption. The Malady of the Century is a portrait of the artist as a young verb. Like R. Kelly covering Les Chants de Maldoror.”
—Bruce Hainley
About the Author
Jon Leon is the author of Elizabeth Zoë Lindsay Drink Fanta (Content, 2011), The Hot Tub (Mal-O-Mar Editions, 2009), Alexandra (Cosa Nostra Editions, 2008), and The Artists Editions: 2006–2010, which include rare limited editions like Right Now the Music and the Life Rule and Drain You among others. A bilingual edition of his Chiacchiere difasiche debuted in Rome and Milan in 2008. His vignettes and criticism appear widely in periodicals such as Soft Targets, East of Borneo, Novembre, Art in America, and L.A. Record. In 2010, he served as creative director at the boutique publishing house Wrath of Dynasty. He lives in New York City.
Additional Links
The Pin-Up Stakes: Case Study on Jon Leon, montevidayo.com
An interview with Jon Leon, HTMLGiant
"Fanta is eternal": James Copeland on Content and Jon Leon, The Faster Times
“Jon Leon has crafted a cold and funny porno-dystopia that 'sends up’ poetry while also behaving like a strict modernist manifesto—a Stein or Pound reveille, with P.T. Barnum bravado, making it new. Reading The Malady of the Century, I think of the dungeon (Marquis de Sade and Dennis Cooper); I also think of the penthouse (Joan Didion and Frederick Seidel). Leon’s voice—if it is indeed a voice, or his—is charmingly post-sentiment; he evacuates poetry’s resources in order to stage, with hilarious, memorable, deadpan showmanship, a bildungsroman of the artist-as-void. Leon’s subject is the rôle of the 'poet,’ a Rimbaud with the resumé of a Russ Meyer.”
—Wayne Koestenbaum
“This thick work is so blindingly over-the-top in how it hits on all the stuff the kids love these days, stuff that comes from a real place of daring integrity but can also land like callowness taken as a drug. Either way it’s great, I inject it. Porn-intellect-fashion-longing and I heart flat-affect. Easy to imitate, hard to aspire to, and I’m trying it now.”
—Rebecca Wolff
“Baudelaire instructed that 'the dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep in front of the mirror.’ Crossing platforms, from mirror to various pulsing LED screens and back, Jon Leon taps sublimity, rousing our daily patois to orgasm without interruption. The Malady of the Century is a portrait of the artist as a young verb. Like R. Kelly covering Les Chants de Maldoror.”
—Bruce Hainley
About the Author
Jon Leon is the author of Elizabeth Zoë Lindsay Drink Fanta (Content, 2011), The Hot Tub (Mal-O-Mar Editions, 2009), Alexandra (Cosa Nostra Editions, 2008), and The Artists Editions: 2006–2010, which include rare limited editions like Right Now the Music and the Life Rule and Drain You among others. A bilingual edition of his Chiacchiere difasiche debuted in Rome and Milan in 2008. His vignettes and criticism appear widely in periodicals such as Soft Targets, East of Borneo, Novembre, Art in America, and L.A. Record. In 2010, he served as creative director at the boutique publishing house Wrath of Dynasty. He lives in New York City.
Additional Links
The Pin-Up Stakes: Case Study on Jon Leon, montevidayo.com
An interview with Jon Leon, HTMLGiant
"Fanta is eternal": James Copeland on Content and Jon Leon, The Faster Times
