When I was about 12, I realized I had a gift for grammar. A talent for grammar taints your worldview: you long to hierarchize and paradigmatize. You want to grasp patterns and unveil causality. You put words in boxes, underscore clauses and dissect time. Math left me absolutely indifferent. But grammar got me going.

Grammar took me to France, where I lived 20 years, riveted by the language I absorbed so fully.

Grammar took me to the Middle East, where my knowledge of classical Arabic verbal forms raised some hoary eyebrows.

And grammar took me through the world of advertising, from copywriter to strategic planner, where spotting patterns and honing in on the essential is paramount.

Ultimately grammar has helped me become analytical, critical and articulate. Which brings me to this blog.

I am a self-proclaimed critic of contemporary cultural production, specifically visual art. Living in a place where cultural criticism has little currency, I have created a parallel space where I can exert my critical eye and raise my voice for a more widespread culture of criticism that goes beyond thumbs up/thumbs down.

As for the name:

Unfinished Perfect is an impossible verb tense. Unlike the present perfect or past perfect, it is unbound by time.

Unfinished Perfect captures a state of tension: incomplete and yet ideal; at once rough and polished; unassuming but highly conscious.

Unfinished Perfect is both product and process: it is a showcase for critical writing, and a journey questioning what a critic really is.

Kevin Jones

vinkejones@live.com