On Thursday I was invited to the New Musuem for the screening of “Graffiti – PostGraffiti” documentary and panel discussion.
Your usual suspects were there. Besides the panelist (Pattie Astor, Fab Five Freddy, Lady Pink, and Lee Quinones), there were many old glories and a couple of aspiring bomber kids in the audience that I am sure were tagging walls late that night.
What started as a celebration, a remembrance, and a comunion, as the liturgy advanced ended up becoming a hurtful vindication and even a flat out purist attack.
I`m the man that fears rejection
Im the man that cant sleep because of problems
I`m the man that will fight and defend the castle
Lying on the carpet, poetry book and pencil in hand, U2 in the background.
October
October
And the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
What do I care
October
And kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on…and on…
So many literal meanings: the fear of wearing-out (The Edge was considering leaving the band like his brother did before they were even called U2), the false sense of security arising from self-defeat (“What do I care”), moving on after a loss (both Bono and Larry had just lost their mothers), the high hopes and expectations arising from new democracies in Eastern Europe only to become despair and dissapointment, and eventually resilience, surviving, going on…
One after another. Light, quick, nonchalant.
Poured, as a quick one-sided conversation, the messages kept coming in.
On the background, music by an unknown artist. Unknown even to himself. Adding a reggae-folk soundtrack that sounded unintendedly tragic. The guitar riffs camouflaging the “new-message” tones. But the desperation kept building up. With every superficial message, a poignant indication that the truth was, still, being concealed. Or worse: never revealed. Each new line, a ticker tape reminder of how little he matter, how opaque and transparent he had become at once.
After reading “Debunking Putin`s Newest Myth” by Alexander Yanov, PhD, and with all my respect and admiration for this very well known historian of Russian nationalisms:
Although quite brilliant and eloquent, I believe it is not incisive and daring enough in debunking Putin`s newest myth. It takes a very conservative approach, perhaps letting a Western traditional philosophy baggage and inclination take the part of pure reason and belief, which is usually needed, in equal parts, to fight a political/philosophical quarrel.
Accompanied by your absence
I hear your skin calling.
Silently, still, I answer.
In the solitude of your presence
I remember sliding down your gaze
fearlessly falling into your void,
your being`s foyer.
Next to you, finally, I rest
dreaming and longing,
with the peace and tranquility that comes from
knowing me you.
I have contributed an essay to the book (PDF soon available for free online, and for purchase in book format -a few sample images shown here-) of an exhibition I am curating. 3 years in the making, “Gaze, Reflexion, Fusion” is the highly poetical but politically charged work of one of the most interesting new photographers in the New York art scene: NEBULA.
From Tokyo to San Francisco, Madrid to Seoul, the Spanish photographer Nebula has traveled to 10 cities in 4 countries in order to find inspiration and the right images (somethimes a fleeting reflexion of it) to bring to life what she feels about art, identity, apropriationism, feminism, and psychoanalysis.
