Jenny Hval’s “Conceptual Romance” Is Concretely Brilliant
Jenny Hval’s “Conceptual Romance” blooms in the space between two bodies colliding, that brief time in which there is the chance to recoil before erotic catastrophe. Flowing through Hval’s head—her “land mine of a heart”—are euphoric dissociations, uncertainty, and sacrifice; she calls this “abstract romanticism.” She confronts these problems from afar, as if it is possible to abandon the body in order to examine its existence. Whereas the beats on Apocalypse, girl and “Female Vampire” are complex, shifting collages, the underlying texture on “Conceptual Romance” is steady and skittering. It’s a dependable lifeblood for Hval’s tranquil introspection.
“Conceptual Romance” evokes that distinct feeling of an artist aligning the stars of emotional reality so succinctly that the result becomes sacred. Anne Carson described this as “a fragrance of understanding—this smell in your head of having gone through something that you understood with the people in the story.” For me, this moment occurs when Hval calls in from a foreign realm: “I don’t know who I am, but I’m working on it/I’m high, high on madness/These are my combined failures/I understand infatuation, rejection/They can connect and become everything, everything that’s torn up in your life.” How does Hval so precisely encompass this tragic spell we all must confront at one point or another? Those who are familiar with Hval’s work know she can flawlessly handle the abstract. But she has never been more concrete, nor more open.
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