Becoming the placeholder.
Once, I misplaced the breaks in my heart. That was a day without paint.
These skins resound a rhythm just below the ear’s reach, so look.
See that ghosting flicker, call it urgency. History. The edge of before.
Call it, cipher.
What is the word for this want?
Only wrong answers can help me now.
***
Inspired by the work of Oscar yi Hou.
Decay as creative premise.
Nested in cordgrass, a master work sinks.
The artist smiles over its cracking disappearance.
Rubble is one of my primary interests, she tells us.
She imagines its rearrangement.
I mean, she adds, what might come?
There are good reasons, after all,
––and especially here, to reject nostalgia.
***
The title of this post comes from this installation by American artist Beverly Buchanan, which a recent New York Times article by Siddhartha Mitter describes as a vanishing masterpiece.
Guardian forms.
Here is your origin: flame
crossing over sky, you
curve from here, from
two lines meeting
at an acute angle
to whisper wings
from these shapes,
nothing but
your parts.
***
Inspired by Paul Klee’s angels.
Language of forms.
I wanted a language, the artist told us, that felt consistent.
Let me show you, the artist offered. The bodies.
And there they were. Body as image, a cipher to be doubled, dismembered, cradled, lifted, evaded––each exceeding the limits of its own banks, overflowing.
What do you call this one? We asked the artist.
Unfinished, the artist told us. That is why we are here, still looking.
***
Inspired by the work of Salman Toor.
An offering to other hands.
Over large canvasses, he painted whole body, whole space, his life.
When his given form could no longer rise to meet the wall, his family offered theirs as new mediums.
He used a laser pointer to guide their hands, the paint. Saying No, there, and Yes, like that. The work evolved, with them.
I miss being able to do it myself, he said, but it’s about the art and you have to go where it takes you.
***
Inspired by the life and work of of Frank Bowling.
Reflections on night work.
It’s easy to give short shrift to surface reflections. No one wants to be called shallow, but look at the distances to be traveled here. I know a guy who only paints at night, his subject always other paintings, who limits himself to reading them by moonlight. I asked him why. As he sees it, the fully lit subject offers a false sense of clarity which masks the problem of too much information. The more you look, the more a well-lit form will start to fold, collapsing in on itself. It can be very distracting. This happens to me all the time, so I was very intrigued by his solution. By taking away the pretense of clarity, he gave himself over to what he could imagine. By removing the pretense of originality and limiting himself to the study of another’s work he was paradoxically freed. As he puts it, I take comfort in the discomfort of not being myself.
***
Inspired when I encountered a description of David Schutter’s Night Work. I take creative liberties with this imagined interpretation of the artist’s process, adapting insights from a recent BOMB interview.
Reflections at play.
We mean to be sophisticated in our tastes. But this is absurd. Really. This whole idea of art we step into. The way you demand we become it. The size and height of these rooms, the excess of mirrors, balloons. You invite us in––for pictures, of course. For the experience. Mirror, mirror, mirror, mirror––on the wall, ceiling, floor. Which is which? Wall, wall, wall, wall. And everywhere we look––even out, there we are. You call it the reflection room. We are delighted.
***
Inspired by an experience in one of the Infinity Rooms created by artist Yayoi Kusama.
Home and away.
In the lens of this longing reach, the soft give of fabric draping over a mother’s head, breast, shoulders––squeezes the chest-bird home like, yes, you will again––someday, even if. Ever.
And the light kiss into bowed bodies in sea, these water-slick skins, fog bedding of hilltops, as if to cushion the fall.
There was––there it was, had been.
You will be––the chest bird strains against its skeleton, not to be kept from that acacia on the hill, blue green in the sunset that is too bright already to be anything you know, and how do you explain this except that it must be all.
***
Inspired by the photography of Ismali Folaranmi Odetola, whose “Necessary Departure” I recently encountered in an airport.
Notes on how to read.
There is a mind that keeps close watch on the dew-slick grass, hopping low, head turned to hear what crawls, to find what fuels the next flight. After this, a watcher in the window, low chirps from whiskered mouth, the fine hairs of the tail feather-tuned with exquisite precision. Another eye will notice how that which manages to still be finely tuned to details in their liquid form while retaining the soft pliancy of a chest-sleeper is enough to swell some subcutaneous expanse behind the ribcage, preparing to soar from what seems to contain its swell. There is temporal awareness, temporary sight. And there is space, breathing enough of nothing to make room for the next renewal.
Through the fourth wall.
In the beginning, it was all about the spectacle of the created world. The chopping off of parts, the restoration, like Tah-dah! Over time, it became more interesting to work on making the stage disappear, to discuss how the engineering works and who it’s for. With a great show, the performance is always for a specific member of the audience.
What’s worth examining now is not the tah-dah, but the questions–– how is that working? and what’s next? There can be more revelation in how the problems and confusion play out. When someone struggles in a real way, they are less self-conscious. Something peeks through.
***
The title of this post comes from a play created by an interesting collaboration between playwright Lucas Hnath and magician Steve Cuiffo and the voice is adapted from comments made by both artists in various interviews on their developing work.
