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The Soft Machine

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From: Artforum
Date: 20061101
Author:Vanderbilt, Tom

The Soft Machine

TOM VANDERBILT ON NIKOLAUS GEYRHALTER'S OUR DAILY BREAD

IN ONE EARLY SCENE of Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle, the Lithuanian-born protagonist reflects on his new job in Chicago's Packingtown. "Jurgis had," Sinclair writes, "stood with the rest up in the gallery and watched the men on the killing beds, marveling at their speed and power as if they had been wonderful machines; it somehow never occurred to one to think of the flesh-and-blood side of it-that is, not until he actually got down into the pit and took off his coat."

A century later, in Nikolaus Geyrhalter's ...

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