Oh Allen, those don't go there

 I’d howl but I got black pipe for a throat. I swear I didn’t take this picture with a potato (all though the quality suggests otherwise). Mr. Ginsberg and his gaping mouth are receiving visitors – anybody who wants the esteemed wordsmith to join their cause should ask, and Allen will oblige. Write down your concerns and whisper a wish into his mouth – it works, or it’ll at least get you some attention.  The bust was built, chopped up and reassembled a whole bunch of times until the image fit the program (like the legacy of the man himself).  I leave you with, as promised, a bit of Mr. Wellman’s reaction;

For the Hasid perverts

Don’t stand beside me

I’ll never forget the hell

You put Einstein through

So close, so soon - Wordly January, 21st

I'm not a little teapot. I'm a bucket of lard rendering over a flame. A rich jelly to spread nicely over warmed bits of toast - give the rest to the dog. So close now, gotta be careful and eat slowly so as to not burn the roof of my mouth. This be the home stretch! Don't spill.

While I cooked down I had some time to snap off a few dirty shots of the new work and in the coming days I'll throw some of those pictures up here a give y'all a look.

I also have some writing to share from the one and only Nathan Wellman. Nate developed a kind of synesthetic response to the attitude he gleaned from the sculpture. Those tasty morsels will be parceled (in small bite sized chunks, we're whetting our appetite here) out along with the new images. But be sure and remember to look for your very own copy of his words when you swing by the show.

Wordly

Jan. 14 - Feb. 17

Opening night Jan. 21

Suffolk University Art Gallery at The New England School of Art & Design

Wordly (or how to survive on nothing but coffee and cigarettes)

The ascetic demands of putting together a show must now be entertained. I’ve limited time and much to do. The doors are locked, the tunes are loud and I will not be taking visitors. Nose to the grindstone, as they might say, but in my case it’s more like fingers to the glue, plaster in the hair and clay down my pants.

“Wordly” opens January 14^th and runs till the 17^th of February at the Suffolk University Art Gallery – the indomitable James Hull directing the space.

Opening night January 20^th.

Some images may come as I find time to snap off some shots, but for now I’m back to work.

Suffolk University Art Gallery at the New School of Art and Design

James Hull, Gallery Director – www.jameshull.com

Gallery Location and Hours

75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 


Gallery is free and open to the public: 


M-F 9 AM-8 PM, Sat & Sun 12 - 5 PM


(After 7pm and on weekends enter thru main lobby at 10 Saint James Ave.)


A novel declaration of character (or what my wife has to put up with).

W - “I’m afraid to go to the dentist”

H - “That’s reasonable. Bye and bye they said twixt t’other cavities they said theys’ reckon to part limbs from a body. Dentists are mighty powerful surgeons.”

“So you’re saying when I go in I’m coming out missing a limb?”

“What I sez is what I reckon you’re afeared of miss.”

“You are really into that book on tape! Let me know when you’re on the way home so I can start dinner”

“Don’t wait up for me darling, I’m in the middle of a thing ‘bout now. I’ll let you know bye and bye.”

“Someone ate all the chocolate chips.”

“The culprit is a mysterious stranger I say. I sez t’was nothin’ a body could do in procuring justice in the matter. Bye and bye I reckon the guilty parties will face their devils ‘fore long. I say a mind might be addled over the circumstance but I do declare I ain’t concerned.  A pure soul, such as I is, will be virtuous bye and bye, and bye and bye the guilty will hang. Don’t worry yourself none”

“Right. So you ate them bye and bye?”

“Indubitably.”

Life, not life (Are those undead candidates done eating my brain?)

 The classic phrase is – “To be or not to be?”  - as opposed to, ”To Be or nothing,” or “To be or death.” Billy Shakes hit on a significant western concept with his insecure hero there. Hamlet asks himself this question, with very little irony (and enough melodrama to fuel seventy years of movie making), to remark on his character’s present state of “being,” - attempting to decide whether or not to act in this way or that.  More important (than the impotence metaphor we could all draw from this archetype) I think we should focus on the exact semantics of the phrase so oft repeated for dramatic effect.

To be or not to be? I’ll submit that this phrase might be considered as the ultimate western position on life (and by position, of course I mean perception). What we have at stake here is not a question of something (being) or nothing (not being), but a view of life (the world/universe for that matter) as a process of consistent action. Being. Always being. We’re either being being, or not being being. By assuming being, or not being are the only two states of existence (life vs. death) in Hamlet’s mind we might conclude “not being” would be a negative state. Obviously being (living) is preferable to not being (death as we would say). But our language betrays us significantly. To be or not to be? Being is a constant, so is not being a negation of being? What were you before birth? You exist now, so what happened before existing? Does your death precede your life as it will end it? Does your death negate your existence? Does your existence negate your preexistence? I don’t know, but I think I might look at the problem through mathematics.

The zero did not exist in the west until, thru trade, it reached our unrefined minds in that dimly lit era. For the Greeks, the progenitors of what we might consider math, had no use for 0 (or infinity for that matter, but that’s a separate conversation), What do you do with nothing? – Nothing. The Greek mind wanted to establish systems for dealing with stuff, things that might be chronicled and compiled and, 0 had no place. The invention of 0 happened in what today is India. 0 represented the Ostrich egg, the womb, the place from which creation springs (much like the bindu or dot, a single point from which everything expands outward).  The vast emptiness, or void, to the eastern mind represented potential. A spark. In the west the conception of 0 was difficult because faith and culture directed folks towards accumulation, improvement, advancement, gaining, gaining, gaining… etc.  Nothingness, or emptiness became the villain in the worldview. To be or not to be?

Mathematics appears to deal in the currency of symmetry, but this is not true. Electricity might have positive and negative currents but gravity has no opposite. Gravity as a force is asymmetrical (a far as we know), and dark matter is what exactly? We can prove everything has mass (therefore everything is something, there is no nothing, even black holes have mass) even energy. Can we find the deep answers of our existence in mathematics? Maybe. Mathematics is the most abstract language/system we’ve developed to explain with the world around us. But as we’ve seen through history just because we can create an abstract language to give ourselves the feeling of objectivity those systems are just as susceptible to cultural bias and misunderstanding as anything rooted in tradition. To be or not to be?

No one knows. No one has the answers. Every system man can create is a fragile as the fence beneath an elephant. But we can believe in those systems and languages together and grow them. These things are only a strong as the shoulders that carry ‘em. That’s the point. This Christmas hang a shovel from a coat rack and place gifts beneath it, convince your friends to do the same. That coat rack will carry the same import as that over size bush in the middle of the room if you allow it.  We live in a transmutable world. To be or not to be, to brush or wipe, to wax on or wax off, to eat or abandon responsibility? Be or not, we’re always going somewhere.

When the Black Dog Dies (Urdu Folklore) or Talking to people with money

A cantankerous Zamindar (wealthy landowner) was known for his short temper.  His house sat atop a tall hill and from the highest room you could see forever (or until your eyes failed you). He claimed all this land. The Zamindar also had a weak heart. Therefore, in his household, the servants were under orders that they should be very careful about what they said to him and the way in which they said it. Once, when he was off in foreign lands, a servant was dispatched with the most recent news from his land.

The master asked him, “You come from my house? How is everybody?”

            “Very well, sir,” said the servant. “Only the Black Dog is dead.”

            “Poor thing, when did it die? It seemed quite well when I left.”

            “It died of indigestion. How could it help dying when it eats so much horse meat?”

            “Horse meat? Where did it get horse meat?”

            “Where else but our stables, sir.”

            “What! Did our horses die?”

            “How could they live when there were no grooms to feed them?”

            “Why, what happened to the grooms?”

            “Only what happens to people when they starve, sir, when there’s no one to pay them.”

            “What are you saying? Why were they not paid? What happened to the steward, what happened to my wife?”

            “How could they live when there’s no cook to make them food?”

            “Why what happened to the cook?”

            “How could he live, sir, when the kitchen caught fire and spread throughout the house and killed everyone?”

Nice Shorts (Dinner in a Gown)

TBA :Model for Lecture to be given in a Public Restroom (verbatim).

“I’d like us all to agree (or not, do whatever you want, I don’t care)”

Post-Modernism (PM) as defined by Merriam-Webster: of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one <postmodern times> <a postmodern metropolis>

 2 a: of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature)

 b: of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language <postmodern feminism>

Got it? Good. Post-Modernism as a phrase emerged in the late 19^th century as critics were attempting to label new styles in the arts. At that time PM was just a term. When Martin Heidegger comes along he screws up the show and attempts to define the term and extrapolate the implications of its meaning and affect on the culture (and by this point in the early 20^th century the western world was swimming in modernism, and the ideas of what a modern style of living could be.) Modernism, at its most basic, was a humanist form of thinking that proclaimed the imaginative power and scope of the human mind could improve all areas of life through focused experimentation and practice.  Therefore to be a modernist you believed in the authority of the individual creation and the rightness, or correctness of said creation. New forms of expression were championed (abstraction, jazz, surrealism, futurism, ism, ism, ism…) precisely because these forms were new, experimental and deeply wound up in expressing the "truth" of the human condition.

Refer back, if you will, to the definition of PM, specifically second entry. Now, assuming you trust my summation of modernism does this definition do any more for you? You’ve heard this term Post-Modernism thrown around yes? (and to say thrown around I mean to say stuck, like unwanted gum, willy-nilly to whatever’s near it.) With all this in mind does Post-Modernism mean something now? Are we all certain and clear on it’s function as noun/adjective/noun? No. You in the back making noise, can you tell me what it means? No? How ‘bout what it means to you? No? You got nothing? Well, neither do I. But I think, at least for the moment I might be able to come up with some kind of working definition.

Postmodernism: The ideology of rejecting ideology. A movement (supposedly) that allows all forms of expression and creativity equal ground without being trapped by linear thought or a rigid dogma, symbols are freely interchangeable, meaning does/doesn’t/might exist, and everything (words, ideas, objects, etc…) are potentially redefined and transformed on the whim of the creator. (Addendum: the creator may neither say something or say nothing. (S)He holds no responsibility to the creation.)

Alright, so is PM a bullshit term used to describe the state of art today? No. PM exist and it’s happening. Post-Modernism as an idea is much more interesting than it seems. Imagine a church with no ceremony – or only ceremony, at the same time or never! Imagine a writer who looks like he does fancy things with punctuation on Thursday and on Tuesday looks like he forgot to pay attention in High School English! This is the actual effect of PM on the environment and it’s great. Everything is on the table, there are no rules and we’re in charge.

PM, in practice in the arts, is a direct fuck you to the “heroes” of the modern era all those big painters with big canvases and their even bigger egos.  They embarrassed themselves for the rest of us so we wouldn’t have to. Those folks got into specifics and rigidity - We’re into fluidity and the mirage; the look of the real is better than the real.

In the arts the need to label and categorize forms of expression is an ever-present evil (look at music and the way critics place bands into invented genres). PM by definition rejects this concept. Many complain about a lack of cohesion in the arts, or a movement per se, but why does that matter? Why must we dress everything up in loose language that never actually enlightens those who are engaged? At the end of the day these terms exist to serve themselves (we got something to talk about something because we got these words and we gotta use ‘em).

Post-Modernism is anarchy, and by (the improved) definition it abhors authority, and this party is only getting bigger – the island is overrun and Piggy’s been dead a long while.  I’m coming to the show but first I gotta find my conch shell.