I went to the MoMA today, and spent a lot of time in the Sweet Violence exhibit. It amazed me. This piece, -tentatively- titled Who Calls You Beautiful?, came from it.
You are wearing Gucci sunglasses that draw attention to your perfectly sculpted cheekbones, and I am wondering, “Who calls you beautiful?”
You are pictured on a black couch, sexy, smoking a cigarette.
You are posing for a camera, naked, splashing water onto your face.
You are bathing, radiant, under magazine-heading text that reads Risveglia la tua pelle!
You are brushing onto your cheeks rouge that conceals scars.
You are painting the image of your child, perfect and happy, smiling in a bubbly tub.
You are showing your pregnant belly in front of a window filled with light.
You are whipping egg whites, your cherry-patterned apron tied tightly around your waist as you stir in a cup of sugar.
You are wearing Gucci sunglasses that draw attention to your perfectly sculpted cheekbones, and I am wondering, “Who calls you beautiful?”
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Startin' Off the New Year Right
I thought I might start off the year with some writing. Really, could there be a better way to welcome 2012??
This is called The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living; it's a meditation on Damien Hirst's exhibit by the same name. I got to see the exhibit at the Met and it was awesome.
Silence. Blood rushes to the ears and brain and quickly flows to the nose, chin, fingertips. Reality vanishes. There is pulsing, a hard pounding from within and, simultaneously, from the skies. Pounding rises from the ground. The heavy air throbs. Yellow taxi cabs and eclectic lighting, the smell of spicy, exotic foods and the hum of crowds are all drowned out of existence. Bright blue thickness surrounds, submerges, engulfs; it is vibrant like the neon advertisements of Times Square, overwhelming like the horns of taxi cab cars, tangy like the flavor of Little India’s ginger, though it is also acidic, stinging, viscous.
Removed from the busyness, a stranger stands in the still water of formaldehyde. He is silent, motionless. Open-mouthed and obscure under a grey coat of collagen, he is suspended. He does not breathe. He makes no sound. His eyes do not blink. Triangular razors jet out of his body; he is built to glide, to puncture. He is water-resistant and oblong and pointed. He does not swim. His jaws are large with sharpened teeth and opened nose holes. He does not sense. He acknowledges no existence. His sandpaper skin has turned to softness. His eyes are blinded and his blades are dulled. He is paralyzed by his vivid ocean, but he remains indifferent. He is encased. He is defeated. There is no threat.
Reality returns.
This is called The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living; it's a meditation on Damien Hirst's exhibit by the same name. I got to see the exhibit at the Met and it was awesome.
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| Image c/o googleimages |
Silence. Blood rushes to the ears and brain and quickly flows to the nose, chin, fingertips. Reality vanishes. There is pulsing, a hard pounding from within and, simultaneously, from the skies. Pounding rises from the ground. The heavy air throbs. Yellow taxi cabs and eclectic lighting, the smell of spicy, exotic foods and the hum of crowds are all drowned out of existence. Bright blue thickness surrounds, submerges, engulfs; it is vibrant like the neon advertisements of Times Square, overwhelming like the horns of taxi cab cars, tangy like the flavor of Little India’s ginger, though it is also acidic, stinging, viscous.
Removed from the busyness, a stranger stands in the still water of formaldehyde. He is silent, motionless. Open-mouthed and obscure under a grey coat of collagen, he is suspended. He does not breathe. He makes no sound. His eyes do not blink. Triangular razors jet out of his body; he is built to glide, to puncture. He is water-resistant and oblong and pointed. He does not swim. His jaws are large with sharpened teeth and opened nose holes. He does not sense. He acknowledges no existence. His sandpaper skin has turned to softness. His eyes are blinded and his blades are dulled. He is paralyzed by his vivid ocean, but he remains indifferent. He is encased. He is defeated. There is no threat.
Reality returns.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Apologies All' Improviso
We had an improvisation workshop in my creative writing class today. This came out of it. Nothin' like some improv to fuel my creative writing.
I'm trying to be strategic. Ten stubby fingers dancing across eighty eight keys. This is what it feels like to be on display, I think, even though I'm in a stuffy closet filled with pianos, just me and my Asian piano teacher.
There are a million ways to go. Eighty eight times eighty eight amounts to 7744 possibilities, plus 7744 times 7744 more when you add in grace notes, trills, passing tones and suspensions. A million little hammers sending vibrations through a million little strings to create sound, as a million doors open to a million possibilities, all painted white and black, alternatively. It occurs to me that I'm not choosing any of them particularly well.
At some point, you just have to go. When everything comes to a halt, all of my blood cells and tendons at once resting, all six nameless figures in the dark room stopped, impulse takes over. A hand raises. A foot jolts forward. My fingers begin to dance.
"Fuck!" I scream when I mess up, and my piano teacher winces. One of the figures falls forward, all bones swathed in blue. A friend once suggested to me that I ought to own my mistakes, never apologizing for them but celebrating them instead. "I'm sorry," the blue figure inside of me says, as she recomposes herself off of the wooden floor that has risen out of itself. She heads toward another door...
Doors. Doors rise out of the floor now, long wooden panels bathed in black. And the figures inside of me are hastening to make their way through them, worlds of possibilities: a seventh chord here, an augmented chord now.
What would it be if we understood the world through music? All of our fingers dancing across black and white keys, constructing black walls from impulse, maneuvering around obstacles suddenly risen.
Creating worlds of harmonies and dissonances in spite of ourselves.
Never apologizing when we fall.
More improv-inspired writing after the jump.
I'm trying to be strategic. Ten stubby fingers dancing across eighty eight keys. This is what it feels like to be on display, I think, even though I'm in a stuffy closet filled with pianos, just me and my Asian piano teacher.
There are a million ways to go. Eighty eight times eighty eight amounts to 7744 possibilities, plus 7744 times 7744 more when you add in grace notes, trills, passing tones and suspensions. A million little hammers sending vibrations through a million little strings to create sound, as a million doors open to a million possibilities, all painted white and black, alternatively. It occurs to me that I'm not choosing any of them particularly well.
At some point, you just have to go. When everything comes to a halt, all of my blood cells and tendons at once resting, all six nameless figures in the dark room stopped, impulse takes over. A hand raises. A foot jolts forward. My fingers begin to dance.
"Fuck!" I scream when I mess up, and my piano teacher winces. One of the figures falls forward, all bones swathed in blue. A friend once suggested to me that I ought to own my mistakes, never apologizing for them but celebrating them instead. "I'm sorry," the blue figure inside of me says, as she recomposes herself off of the wooden floor that has risen out of itself. She heads toward another door...
Doors. Doors rise out of the floor now, long wooden panels bathed in black. And the figures inside of me are hastening to make their way through them, worlds of possibilities: a seventh chord here, an augmented chord now.
What would it be if we understood the world through music? All of our fingers dancing across black and white keys, constructing black walls from impulse, maneuvering around obstacles suddenly risen.
Creating worlds of harmonies and dissonances in spite of ourselves.
Never apologizing when we fall.
More improv-inspired writing after the jump.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
All Mod
I put together this board today on a whim, just choosing objects that I liked. When I looked at them together, I simultaneously thought, "Cool!" and "Whaaaa?" I guess this means that I want tea, fugly Christmas trees, and summery dresses, all from Modcloth, all at once.
Really, could it be any other way?
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