all is not lost, mes amants. marteau en entier will go up in november; now we must decide on a few solid companion pieces. i recently went to an art performance at 12th and avenue a and was assaulted by pennies. i like the ghettoblaster portrait up at ad projects this week a bit better. i am not of that world, so i struggle; somehow the violence of the performance fell flat-a waste of a lord of the flies foghorn, if you ask me.
this city makes you feel like you always have something to prove, no matter what the context; i was idly thinking of paris this afternoon, as i do, and recalled lazy sunday family lunches that seemed to make time stand still - pâté followed by salad dripping in balsamic vinaigrette, to be lapped up by crusty baguette, then a fish or poultry course lightly prepared; cheese course; coffee in the salon.
and so i defended my line of whimsical collaboration following a trail of archetypal conservatory training as we strolled towards essex last night and thought: where do we draw the line? when is it this not that? these types of curatorial decisions are what define us in the artistic community, and yet we are not schooled to be tastemakers. perhaps in the end we should nab some decent speakers and listen together to hours of music to find out what makes us tick, so to speak, to calibrate our collaborative clocks.
for me, most times, it's jessye norman's third last song by strauss, where she literally transcends the symphony orchestra, ian bostridge's bach cantatas, hilliard's take on pérotin's viderunt omnes...take home lesson is that we all have different palates. when collaborating it is not only important to recognize the palate of another but also to complement (and consciously defy) it.
parting thought:
elizabeth bishop, "insomnia"
The moon in the bureau mirror looks out a million miles (and perhaps with pride, at herself, but she never, never smiles) far and away beyond sleep, or perhaps she's a daytime sleeper. By the Universe deserted, she'd tell it to go to hell, and she'd find a body of water, or a mirror, on which to dwell. So wrap up care in a cobweb and drop it down the well into that world inverted where left is always right, where the shadows are really the body, where we stay awake all night, where the heavens are shallow as the sea is now deep, and you love me. |
