Art and Text

My time has been split between attending literary events and public health workshops. I’m trying to catch up my blog with all of these happenings. One thing at a time. Written installments that try frantically to keep pace with my life. Always writing in past tense. Always speaking in fragments when the objective is to make connections; create holistic meaning.

Recently I traipsed through the American Folk Art Museum to catch the last day of a Henry Darger exhibit. The exhibit showcased the work of Darger and a handful of artists he has influenced. Amy Cutler’s paintings corralled the majority of my attention (I had seen one of her paintings over a year ago at the Brooklyn Museum, but had forgotten about her until this recent rediscovery).

From far away the girls in Cutler’s pieces look nearly identical, but upon closer scrutiny, each face and expression denotes distinct personality. I appreciated Cutler’s prompt to look closely and to ponder the little mysteries of her work. Domestic spaces and quaintly attired female figures provoke curiosity through absurdities such as people being rolled into Persian rugs, girls’ hair seamlessly braided together, and/or strange crafts being conducted with women’s hair. The coils of hair providing a life line between and providing a resource for the arts and crafts of these depicted characters offers a nesting doll dialogue about folk art that comments on itself, that captures the act of crafting in a landscape of folk costumes with a heavy dose of surrealist, fairy tale intrigue. Adding to the quiet, wintry provocation of the paintings is the negative space: white consumes much of the work, sometimes providing little, if any, sense of space and horizon. Cutler also demonstrates a fascination with private, small spaces—a child-like whimsy akin to setting up a personal headquarters in a closet or investigating and cherishing all of the components and compartments of a doll house (as in Katherine Mansfield’s “The Doll House,” and Kezia’s love of the little lamp).

A contemporary Chinese-American artist was also featured in the exhibit: Yun-Fei Ji. His cramped and interesting work can be viewed here. Exploring the juxtaposition of text and image (Darger provided illustrations for his novels), the exhibit nodded to traditional Chinese art--fusing word and image in flowing, thick, black-tipped brushstrokes.

Earlier, I was reading an interview with Lynda Barry (a self-taught artist, and in many ways, connected to this idea of American “folk arts”) who discussed the link between text and picture, as well as its roots in Chinese art. For Barry, art is a response to compulsion and necessity, and thought projects images into the theater of the mind. Barry would have been a nice addition to this exhibit, adding to the discourse with contributions by graphic novelists—as “outsider” artists, as celebrating the marriage of illustration and written language, etc.

However, it is clear that the marriage of text and the visual arts is not to explicate. Despite Darger’s outpour of narrative, ambiguity chokes his precise message and vision. Little girls infest battlegrounds with flaccid penises . . . What more can be said? It is a worthy image of analytical debate that leaves me pensive and fearful of loquacity. It is a jolting mascot for an adolescent-like awkwardness that never fully departs after crossing the hazy threshold into adulthood.

Clemmy's Memories of War

Clytemnestra, performed by the Martha Graham Dance Company, Skirball Center of Performing Arts

It didn’t matter that silence helped to puncture the chest of Clytemnestra as her son, Orestes, stabbed her in the heart. The lack of soundtrack amplified the dancers’ breathing. Waif-like Clytemnestra gasped for air. Percussion was maintained when the dancers smacked their thighs and stomped on the ground. The audience held its breath—shocked by the silence and the seamless intensity of emotion and movement on stage. Intermittent static: the soundtrack returned, stopped, returned again with an obnoxious presence that ruled out any notion that these pauses were intended. The technical malfunction provided an avenue for chatter as those on nervous trysts exited the venue, relieved to have a conversational prompt.

Writhing and contractions—those are the movements I imagine when I think of Martha Graham. Clytemnestra did not disappoint. The set was stark with blanched, abstract forms, like the melted debris you might find in a Dali painting. The costumes were flowing and “primitive”—adhering to the modern mode of “primitivism” when global, indigenous designs added exotic turbulence to Eurocentric standards of art. The props were sparse and awkward, including a weapon that looked too bulbous to be a threat. Characters effectively horrified the audience with contorted facial expressions at the culmination of rape, betrayal, and murder.

Watch a video of one of the rehearsals for the dance—this is the character Cassandra prophesying death and destruction:

(I discovered this video on The Clytemnestra Project website)

Perplexed

At my job I continue to feel displaced. My position and its duties are still hazy. Mainly I have been getting to know the other people in the program (most of whom fit my profile: young, female, twenty-something, eventual graduate school plans--although most of my co-workers plan on going to medical school or something else public health-related). Our first few weeks were full of team building activities, brimming with the usual orientation agenda: meditation, scavenger hunts, and tear shedding.

We also did a community service project, working in a soup kitchen. Passing out bread in a church, I was told plenty of jokes I didn't quite get. I had to wait for facial cues to communicate that the punch line had been delivered so I could force a chuckle. One man made his jokes at the expense of the horrible piano player in the church—“He doesn’t know more than three chords! I can’t take any more of this!” Others, very seriously, asked us for certain flavors of bagels and outright dismissed some of the morsels we offered (which made us smile, jokes made to ourselves). I saw no children and few women. Plenty of men in all sizes and colors: some bearded, some in suits, some a little bloodied, some young and cavalier (in a hipster or punk rock transient version of gallant).

In the Bronx, I impressed a gaggle of children with my ability to blow giant soap bubbles, successfully distracting them from bothering their parents who were being lectured on preventing these same kids’ asthma-related emergency room visits. Attention-starved erratics talked to me about nothing because they didn’t want me to stop listening.

Medical meetings. An early morning of elevated vocabulary and pink and purple slides that reminded me of fruit stripe gum (the zebra gum I loved as a kid). A pathologist was showing the residents and doctors the effects of asthma on a small child, the microscopic story. I munched on a free bagel (any kind is fine with me) and sipped on some cold coffee while squinting my eyes, hard (as if that would make the slides more intelligible to me).

Disgruntled social workers. Well, a disgruntled social worker berated a man showing a slide of his son tied up to a respirator--as if this man was truly an insouciant corporate head who was defending the NYC transportation department by posing as an activist for cleaner air solutions. The disgruntled have a question for everything: if the breakfast is free, does that mean don’t count on eggs and bacon? If you are researching a Dominican population, is your survey in Spanish? If I clap my hands to punctuate my diatribe, will you better understand how meticulous and passionate my insights?

At a different meeting, conducted by a group of faith-based community organizers, I extemporized a presentation on a program I studied on the cab ride to the site. Preachers trying to out-preach each other. It was a long meeting. One man in a red hat, brown blazer, and pink pants and shoes interrupted the scheduled presentations to openly reflect on religious tolerance—a nearly obsolete point in a room comprised of Jewish, Muslim, and multi-denominational Christians. Perhaps because I am inundated with radical forms of various religions in the media I was impressed with how engaged these people were in their communities with no hidden agenda of proselytizing (or so it seems). Subsequently, I was disappointed in myself for being so cynical.

Particularly reassuring was the support this group—mostly men—gave to a woman, a survivor of a violent relationship, who was abandoned by her preacher during her struggle. Despite abandonment by her religious leader, she still maintained her faith. This community stressed the importance of ending violence against women and called out the fallacies of forcing women to stay in monogamous situations if the union is dangerous for the woman and her children.

Last note: I hate Sarah Palin. The entire campaign horrifies me. My job denies me from being publicly political, but, anonymously, I must express my anxiety over this upcoming election and future of this country. Unfortunately, the absurdity of everything that is happening right now leaves me flummoxed. Nonplussed. . . . only capable of finding different words for “baffled.”

First Few City Fragments

My first few weeks in NYC consisted of all the things one could hope for in a first encounter with a diverse, globally-connected city:

I saw two girls mugging another girl (wrists held against a cast-iron fence with hip thrusting and uppercuts—stabbing?—to the lower abdomen—curses barked—conspicuous under a lamp post—a man calling from the window, aloofly, “Call the police.” “Shut the fuck up.”)

On the way to meeting a friend at his work, my route was obstructed by an Indian Parade (an event that seemed to consist mainly of floats advertising phone rates to and from India. Sampled: good veggie samosas and pakora)

Viewed a performance by a Washington Square regular—a caped man who cuts oranges, mid-air, with a wooden sword, and who films himself doing so (he is also a poet, dabbling in miracles: “The cure for AIDS is equal parts AIDS to vinegar.”).

Was shat on by a pigeon and had to clean myself up in a public restroom before continuing to the David Byrne "Playing the House" at the Battery Maritime Building.

Played an organ that was connected to pipes, radiators, and devices that clanged on pillars and windows in a nearly vacated warehouse (this was accompanied by extemporized dance routines, walking into people’s pictures, and listening to a bunch of racket as many first-time composers tried to master an unmasterable instrument). See this NPR article.

Eating lots of cupcakes. Babycakes is where I contemplate the feasibility of my participation in the “freegan” movement. Certainly I would go dumpster diving for clothing and furniture if I wasn’t so damn paranoid about bed bugs.

Started going to Bikram Yoga (“hot” yoga)—I keep returning because I want to know if pleasure can eventually be found in drowning in the puddle I make on my purple yoga mat.

Lost my phone in a Rite Aid and had to ask some strangers (who were discussing Obama's campaign) if I could borrow their phone to call my own and find in which aisle I inadvertently placed it.

Met Donald Green--"New York Times Published Author"--who composed a poem for a friend named Donald--not a NYTimes published author--and who mentioned, in the poem he composed--this is Donald Green we are talking about, published author--God--although he is not religious--and he, Donald Green mentioned--again, the NYTimes published poet--his friend who directed Sister Act and Sister Act II--"and he used to be from the East-East Village"--and he, Donald Green, who will soon, he claims, be working in television, and who once appeared on Columbia University's radio program, talked to us for three hours as I shifted my weight, scratched my nose, and thought about cutting him off if such an action wouldn't have absolutely broken my heart.

Went to a friend’s birthday party with a celebrity guest (someone from TV. Someone in fashion. That is all I will say).

In Brooklyn, I went to a poetry reading—the spotlight was on Philip Levine (scatological: comparing prose poems to turds and lines about cat shit. It all spoke to my inner crotchety old man. Humor is a good tool for engaging audiences, readers—and it eases the tension in a cynical personality. Such a thing certainly deserves the showcasing it received. Before Levine: lulling voices, striking commands of language, and a lacking—a lacking of the ability to “take off the top of my head”—to speak to my inner curmudgeon).

Finished this blog in a coffee shop on a miserable rainy day; the city's bowels grumbling at my feet.