Elfreide Jelinek said that “language should be tortured to tell the truth.” Slavoj Žižek added, “the most elementary form of torturing one’s language is called poetry.” They meant this figuratively. Qualis Artifex Pereo (what an artist dies with me) makes literal the bond between poetry and torture, displaying the poems of politicians who condemned untold millions to ethnic cleansing, genocide, starvation, and purge. It draws its title from Nero, the first such poet-warrior, who on his deathbed exclaimed “what an artist dies with me.” This is a statement and a question.
