“A small and not ostentatious chamber with whose decorations no fault can be found” is the third published work by the Museum and Longing and Failure (MOLAF). The book takes shape through an adaptation of the final paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Furniture,” in which Poe describes his vision of a perfect room. In the MOLAF’s updated version, approximately one third of Poe’s words are replaced with words found in the titles of the seventy-five sculptures currently in MOLAF’s permanent collection. The resulting text proposes an alternative to Poe’s idealized chamber; a speculative setting for the Museum of Longing and Failure “with whose decorations no fault can be found.”

Co-published by The Rooms, NL, in conjunction with the 2019 exhibition “The Museum and Longing and Failure: MOLAF XX.”

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The Museum of Longing and Failure (MOLAF) is a collecting entity established in 2010 in Bergen, Norway by Andrew Taggart and Chloe Lewis. Exploring a fluidity between institution, artwork, and author, The MOLAF takes shape through a sustained conversation with living artists and collectives, whose contributed sculptures form the basis of exhibitions, interventions, publications, and the production of new objects by the MOLAF itself.