From Mimic to Master of Invention
By HOLLAND COTTER
Published: October 22, 2009
PHILADELPHIA — Two stories are well known about the Armenian-American artist Arshile Gorky. One is that he came to a terrible end, a suicide in his mid-40s, after a hammering series of catastrophes. The other is that he took a very long time — around 20 years, until he was in his late 30s — to become the artist who painted some of the most magnetic and heart-rending pictures of the 20th century. Skip to next paragraph
Before that he was many other artists. He was Cézanne, Picasso, Léger, Miró, André Masson and Roberto Matta, more or less in that order, as he assiduously and almost selflessly emulated a succession of existing personal styles to teach himself how to be a painter.
This unusually long learning curve in his relatively short life can give a chronological survey of his art, like the magisterial “Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, an unbalanced shape. Gorky’s protracted apprenticeship was followed by distinctive wonders: the rustling and throbbing landscape in “Water of the Flowery Mill”; the penumbral, narcotized mood piece called “Soft Night”; the meat-colored “Agony,” which suggests a slab of burned flesh and dates from 1947, the year before Gorky died.
What’s surprising about the Philadelphia show, though, is how much it feels of a piece, even if it doesn’t look like it. Stylistically, eclecticism rules as you move from Gorky playing Cézanne, to Gorky doing Cubism, to Gorky the Surrealist. Constant throughout, though, is an impression, as strong and invisible as a force field, of physical and psychic concentration.
It radiates from meticulously drawn, plotted, eraser-smudged and redrawn studies for paintings and from the painted, scraped-down, piled up, scratched-into surfaces of the paintings themselves, which betray revisions made to incorporate new formal and technical information that Gorky gleaned from prowling museums, poring over art magazines and talking with artists.
And much as he was one of the great absorbers in art, Gorky was also one of the great pretenders in life. The two roles, both about survival through invention, are closely related. Just as he changed aesthetic identities, he changed personal histories.
He was born Vosdanik Adoian in Armenia near the Turkish border, probably around 1902; he gave different dates at different times. His father, a trader and carpenter, emigrated to the United States in 1908 to avoid being drafted into the Turkish army, leaving behind a wife, Shushan, and children.
In a 1912 studio photograph a moony, preteenage Gorky poses beside his mother, who is seated and wearing an apronlike gown embroidered with flowers. The portrait was probably made to be sent to America, to remind the absent husband and father that his family was waiting to join him, though for one of them this would prove impossible.
By 1915 the Turkish government initiated what became a systematic genocide of the Armenian population in and near Turkey. Gorky and his family became refugees, often on the move, repeatedly subjected to exposure and food shortages. His mother sickened , and in 1919, at 39, she died of starvation in his arms. A year later he made it to the United States, first staying with his father in New England, but soon striking out on his own. At which point the self-invention began.
He was no longer Armenian. He was now a Russian named Arshile Gorky, a cousin of the writer Maxim Gorky. He was a painter; he had, precociously, already studied with Kandinsky and exhibited in Paris. Far from being a shy, bookish, provincial youth, he was a cosmopolite, a bohemian genius prepared to cut a swath through the cultural world of New York, where he settled in 1924.
His story was, of course, full of holes. Did he even know that “Maxim Gorky” was itself a pseudonym for a writer named Alexei Peshkov? It didn’t matter. This was America. You could be what you wanted to be. And what he wanted to be — this is the core of truth in his story — was an artist, even if one very much in the making.
The retrospective, organized by Michael R. Taylor, curator of modern art at the Philadelphia Museum, scrupulously tracks that making, or self-making. Among the Gorkys in the opening gallery, for example, are a view of Staten Island rooftops rendered à la Cézanne, graphite portraits in the manner of Ingres, and Picassoid deconstructions of a Greenwich Village studio interior.
Certain early pictures, though, fall outside the program of self-training through imitation. In 1926 Gorky began two large paintings based on the 1912 photograph of himself and his mother. He paints the figures essentially as they are in the photo, no distortion, no fooling around. Stylistically, Picasso and Matisse are there as he paints, but they’re also beside point. Gorky doesn’t subject himself to their styles, but uses them to shape a fixed and talismanic memory of his life, his real life.
He isn’t trying to be some other artist. He’s trying to be himself, and at this stage in his career the effort is awkward. Both paintings have clearly been thought and rethought countless times, and with every rethinking seem to have become harder to grasp, less complete. In the end he left them, like the weaving on Penelope’s loom, unfinished, as if waiting for the sitters to return and resume their places.
Although he kept one of these paintings with him all his life, he appears to have stopped work on both around the time of his final stylistic immersion, into Surrealism. This began around 1939, when World War II drove Surrealist artists to New York, among the first to arrive being Matta, from whom Gorky learned to thin his paint to a wash and to loosen up his hand.
The show heavily emphasizes the Surrealist influence on Gorky, on the grounds that it has been underestimated, even denied in the past. But the influence is obvious and acknowledged now, so the issue feels overplayed in the catalog and in a large gallery given over to Gorky’s Surrealist phase.
The mere presence of the great painting titled “The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb,” with its slaughterhouse motifs and air of monstrous jollity, would have clinched the point. But here it has been surrounded by many — and I would say too many —related pictures, all hung against a chocolate-brown band that zigzags over the wall. The idea is to suggest Surrealist zaniness. The effect is to diminish the dynamism of the art and make the wall labels jump out.
With Surrealism, Gorky once more proved himself an ardent student. He examined his model, mastered its particularities, took it in and made something surpassingly personal of it. What that movement gave Gorky was spontaneity, and after decades of discipline he was ready to make optimum use of it, to let art and emotion flow together. In many paintings of the early 1940s they do, and almost for the first time you sense his work relax into joy.
In 1941 he married a woman he adored. In 1943 they had a daughter. His career was going well. He was spending months in the countryside, rediscovering, or imagining, the love he had felt for the farmlands of Armenia as a child. Many of his marvelous abstract landscapes — bathed in autumnal Keatsian mist, their forms as pulpy and sweet as peeled ripe fruit — come from this time.
But emotionally more ambiguous paintings do too. “The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb” dates to 1944. So does “How My Mother’s Embroidered Apron Unfolds in My Life,” another memory painting, but in this case abstract and chaotic, like a close-up, baby-at-the-breast view of fraying fabric.
In 1946 Gorky’s life started to unraveled with shocking force. His studio burned, with a significant loss of work. He had debilitating, humiliating surgery for rectal cancer and sank into a depression. Over the next year his marriage foundered; his wife had a fling with his mentor-friend Matta. In 1948, after losing the use of his painting arm in a car accident, Gorky hanged himself.
Knowing about this end naturally darkens our view of all that came before, but darkness really was there early with his family’s life as refugees and his mother’s death, and despite the relocations and reinventions, it never withdrew. What kept life manageable was art, and specifically the practice of art, a practice that Gorky turned into an art, a kind of yoga of learning, looking, focusing, doing, redoing, humbly, pridefully, hourly, daily.
Creation was salvation. That sounds romantic, but why put it any other way? Gorky was a Romantic, though that only becomes fully evident in his art at the end. If the Philadelphia show seems to take a long time to get to the end, the great stuff there is worth the wait. And besides, you’re getting some of it all along the way, in art that is all one thing, all one life.
“Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective” runs through Jan. 10 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. It then travels to the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Hume, Belief
Belief requires that there also be some fact present to the senses or memory, which gives “strength and solidity to the related idea.” In these circumstances, belief is as unavoidable as is the feeling of a passion; it is “a species of natural instinct,” “the necessary result of placing the mind” in this situation.
Belief is “a peculiar sentiment, or lively conception produced by habit” that results from the manner in which ideas are conceived, and “in their feeling to the mind.” It is “nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain” (EHU, 49). Belief is thus “more an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures” (T, 183), so that “all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation” (T, 103). This should not be surprising, given that belief is “so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures.” “It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of the mind, by some instinct or mechanical tendency” than to trust it “to the fallacious deductions of our reason” (EHU, 55). Hume's “sceptical solution” thus gives a descriptive alternative, appropriately “independent of all the laboured deductions of the understanding,” to philosophers' attempts to account for our causal “reasonings” by appeal to reason and argument. For the other notions in the definitional circle, “either we have no idea of force or energy, and these words are altogether insignificant, or they can mean nothing but that determination of the thought, acquir'd by habit, to pass from the cause to its usual effect” (T, 657).
Belief is “a peculiar sentiment, or lively conception produced by habit” that results from the manner in which ideas are conceived, and “in their feeling to the mind.” It is “nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain” (EHU, 49). Belief is thus “more an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures” (T, 183), so that “all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation” (T, 103). This should not be surprising, given that belief is “so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures.” “It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary an act of the mind, by some instinct or mechanical tendency” than to trust it “to the fallacious deductions of our reason” (EHU, 55). Hume's “sceptical solution” thus gives a descriptive alternative, appropriately “independent of all the laboured deductions of the understanding,” to philosophers' attempts to account for our causal “reasonings” by appeal to reason and argument. For the other notions in the definitional circle, “either we have no idea of force or energy, and these words are altogether insignificant, or they can mean nothing but that determination of the thought, acquir'd by habit, to pass from the cause to its usual effect” (T, 657).
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy
First published Wed Jun 28, 2006
Zen aims at a perfection of personhood. To this end, sitting meditation called “za-zen” is employed as a foundational method of prāxis across the different schools of this Buddha-Way, through which the Zen practitioner attempts to embody non-discriminatory wisdom vis-à-vis the meditational experience known as “satori” (enlightenment). A process of discovering wisdom culminates in the experiential dimension in which the equality of thing-events is apprehended in discerning them. The most distinguishing feature of this school of the Buddha-Way is seen in its contention that wisdom, accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the everyday “life-world” when associating with one's self, people, and nature. The everyday “life-world” for most people is an evanescent transforming stage in which living is consumed, philosophically speaking, by an either-or, ego-logical, dualistic paradigm of thinking with its attendant psychological states such as stress and anxiety. Zen demands an overcoming of this paradigm by practically achieving an holistic perspective in cognition, so that the Zen practitioner can celebrate, with a stillness of mind, a life of tending toward the concrete thing-events of everyday life and nature. For this reason, the Zen practitioner is required to embody freedom expressive of the original human nature. Generally speaking, Zen cherishes simplicity and straightforwardness in grasping reality and acting on it “here and now,” for it believes that a thing-event that is immediately presencing before one's eyes or under one's foot is no other than an expression of suchness, i.e., it is such that it is showing its primordial mode of being. It also understands a specificity of thing-event to be a recapitulation of the whole; parts and the whole are to be lived in an inseparable relationship through an exercise of nondiscriminatory wisdom, without prioritizing the visible over the invisible, the explicit over the implicit, and vice versa. As such, Zen maintains a stance of “not one” and “not two,” i.e., “positionless position,” where “not two” signals a negation of the stance that divides the whole into two parts, i.e., dualism, while “not one” designates a negation of this stance when the Zen practitioner dwells in the whole as one, while suspending judgment in meditation, i.e., non-dualism. Free, bilateral movement between “not one” and “not two” characterizes Zen's achievement of a personhood with a third perspective that cannot, however, be confined to either dualism or non-dualism (i.e., neither “not one” nor “not two”).
Zen aims at a perfection of personhood. To this end, sitting meditation called “za-zen” is employed as a foundational method of prāxis across the different schools of this Buddha-Way, through which the Zen practitioner attempts to embody non-discriminatory wisdom vis-à-vis the meditational experience known as “satori” (enlightenment). A process of discovering wisdom culminates in the experiential dimension in which the equality of thing-events is apprehended in discerning them. The most distinguishing feature of this school of the Buddha-Way is seen in its contention that wisdom, accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the everyday “life-world” when associating with one's self, people, and nature. The everyday “life-world” for most people is an evanescent transforming stage in which living is consumed, philosophically speaking, by an either-or, ego-logical, dualistic paradigm of thinking with its attendant psychological states such as stress and anxiety. Zen demands an overcoming of this paradigm by practically achieving an holistic perspective in cognition, so that the Zen practitioner can celebrate, with a stillness of mind, a life of tending toward the concrete thing-events of everyday life and nature. For this reason, the Zen practitioner is required to embody freedom expressive of the original human nature. Generally speaking, Zen cherishes simplicity and straightforwardness in grasping reality and acting on it “here and now,” for it believes that a thing-event that is immediately presencing before one's eyes or under one's foot is no other than an expression of suchness, i.e., it is such that it is showing its primordial mode of being. It also understands a specificity of thing-event to be a recapitulation of the whole; parts and the whole are to be lived in an inseparable relationship through an exercise of nondiscriminatory wisdom, without prioritizing the visible over the invisible, the explicit over the implicit, and vice versa. As such, Zen maintains a stance of “not one” and “not two,” i.e., “positionless position,” where “not two” signals a negation of the stance that divides the whole into two parts, i.e., dualism, while “not one” designates a negation of this stance when the Zen practitioner dwells in the whole as one, while suspending judgment in meditation, i.e., non-dualism. Free, bilateral movement between “not one” and “not two” characterizes Zen's achievement of a personhood with a third perspective that cannot, however, be confined to either dualism or non-dualism (i.e., neither “not one” nor “not two”).
Watsuji Tetsuro
Influenced by Heidegger, Watsuji's Climate and Culture is both an appreciation of, and a critique of Heidegger. In particular, Watsuji argues that Heidegger under-emphasizes spatiality, and over-emphasizes temporality. Watsuji contends that had Heidegger equally emphasized spatiality, it would have tied him more firmly to the human world where we interact, both fruitfully and negatively. We are inextricably social, connected in so many ways, and ethics is the study of these social connections and positive ways of interacting.
Human beings have a dual-nature, as individuals, and as member of various social groupings. We face each other in the betweenness between us, where we can either maintain a safe distance, or enter into intimate relationships of worth. Fundamental to positive, intimate relationships is trust, and trustworthiness.
Human beings have a dual-nature, as individuals, and as member of various social groupings. We face each other in the betweenness between us, where we can either maintain a safe distance, or enter into intimate relationships of worth. Fundamental to positive, intimate relationships is trust, and trustworthiness.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC)
Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice, commonly abbreviated ZFC, is the standard form of axiomatic set theory and as such is the most common foundation of mathematics. It has a single primitive ontological notion, that of a hereditary well-founded set, and a single ontological assumption, namely that all individuals in the universe of discourse are such sets.
ZFC is a one-sorted theory in first-order logic. The signature has equality and a single primitive binary relation, set membership, which is usually denoted ∈. The formula a ∈ b means that the set a is a member of the set b (which is also read, "a is an element of b" or "a is in b").
Most of the ZFC axioms state that particular sets exist. For example, the axiom of pairing says that given any two sets a and b there is a new set {a, b} containing exactly a and b. Other axioms describe properties of set membership. A goal of the ZFC axioms is that each axiom should be true if interpreted as a statement about the collection of all sets in the von Neumann universe (also known as the cumulative hierarchy).
The metamathematics of ZFC has been extensively studied. Landmark results in this area established the independence of the continuum hypothesis from ZFC, and of the axiom of choice from the remaining ZFC axioms.
ZFC is a one-sorted theory in first-order logic. The signature has equality and a single primitive binary relation, set membership, which is usually denoted ∈. The formula a ∈ b means that the set a is a member of the set b (which is also read, "a is an element of b" or "a is in b").
Most of the ZFC axioms state that particular sets exist. For example, the axiom of pairing says that given any two sets a and b there is a new set {a, b} containing exactly a and b. Other axioms describe properties of set membership. A goal of the ZFC axioms is that each axiom should be true if interpreted as a statement about the collection of all sets in the von Neumann universe (also known as the cumulative hierarchy).
The metamathematics of ZFC has been extensively studied. Landmark results in this area established the independence of the continuum hypothesis from ZFC, and of the axiom of choice from the remaining ZFC axioms.
continuum hypothesis, Cantor
In mathematics, the continuum hypothesis (abbreviated CH) is a hypothesis, advanced by Georg Cantor in 1877, about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states:
There is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and that of the real numbers.
There is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and that of the real numbers.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
socrates, glaucon, polemarchus
I - Socrates - Glaucon
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I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.
I turned round, and asked him where his master was.
There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.
Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.
SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS
Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and our companion are already on your way to the city.
You are not far wrong, I said.
But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?
Of course.
And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are.
May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go?
But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.
Certainly not, replied Glaucon.
Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.
Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?
With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will he celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.
Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.
Very good, I replied.
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Plato's PhaedoPhilosophy Course: Death Free Yale Video LectureAcademicEarth.org/Philosophy
I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.
I turned round, and asked him where his master was.
There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.
Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.
SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS
Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and our companion are already on your way to the city.
You are not far wrong, I said.
But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?
Of course.
And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are.
May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us go?
But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.
Certainly not, replied Glaucon.
Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.
Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?
With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will he celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.
Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.
Very good, I replied.
Monday, April 20, 2009
late picasso exhibit
Going All Out, Right to the End
By ROBERTA SMITH
In the main, Picasso only got better. That’s the take-away from the staggering exhibition of Picasso’s late paintings and prints at the Gagosian Gallery.
One of the best shows to be seen in New York since the turn of the century, it proves that contrary to decades of received opinion, Picasso didn’t skitter irretrievably into an abyss of kitsch, incoherence or irrelevance after this or that high-water mark. For some, his decline began as early as 1914, when he and Braque went their separate ways after inventing Cubism. Others deferred until the arrival of the bourgeois Olga Khokhlova in 1917, or the pliant Marie-Thérèse Walter in 1927, or the end of World War II. But the mid-1950s have been generally accepted as the point of no return.
That stance has steadily eroded over the last 25 years, and should finally bite the dust here. The 50 paintings and 49 prints on view demonstrate that in the decade preceding his death in 1973 at 91, Picasso painted, as usual, for his life. But his life was drawing to a close, and pressure was mounting. He diverted it into paintings whose emotional rawness, physical immediacy and often wicked pictorial joyfulness were not quite like anything he had made before. They may not have changed the course of art, but give them time. First they deserve their due.
This is not the first big exhibition of late Picasso. But it may come at an unusually receptive time, when art is wide open, and the understanding of what it takes to be an artist has gotten a bit fuzzy around the edges. Or perhaps this show represents an unusually rigorous sampling of the last decade, having been chosen by John Richardson, Picasso’s formidable biographer, and superbly installed by him in the elegant, austere, sky-lighted galleries in Gagosian’s West 21st Street space in Chelsea.
Like the retrospective of Piero Manzoni that recently filled Gagosian’s West 24th Street emporium, “Picasso: Mosqueteros” should make any museum glow green with envy. And it looks better than just about any museum could manage. Free of wall texts and free of charge, it assumes that the public knows how to look at art and keeps distractions to a minimum.
As befits its title, the selection abounds with paintings of big-headed musketeers and matadors. Extravagantly clothed and mustachioed, they present an opportunity for excoriating self-portraiture disguised as caricature, while also dueling with past masters like Velázquez, Manet and Rembrandt.
There are thick-limbed figures of several kinds: entangled lovers whose mouths sometimes merge in desperate kisses; female nudes folded this way and that, with boxy feet and pebble-round toes; and a few male nudes that recall Cézanne’s bather in the Museum of Modern Art or the kouroi statues of archaic Greece, here seen in a golden Arcadian light heated to a brash egg-yolk yellow.
In this show the late paintings often have a fierce, antic urgency that recalls “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Their scale and surfaces can be jarring, too close for comfort from any range. The figures have prominent black eyes that resemble those of the demoiselles, as well as of Picasso himself (as Mr. Richardson pointed out in a recent newspaper article). But this late style is softer and more fluid, a combination of painting, drawing and calligraphy that verges on automatism.
It makes as much sense to call it deconstructionist as Expressionist. The images disintegrate and recombine as you look, keeping every particle of paint and every scintilla of gesture in view while often cracking wise. In one of the show’s most haunting images, the terrified, seemingly flayed face of a matador is rendered in offhand smearings of lavender. The bullfighter may be looking at death; the surface laughs in its face.
In his catalog essay Mr. Richardson writes that Picasso said that technique was important, “on condition that one has so much ... that it completely ceases to exist.” But according to a short film playing in a small side gallery, Picasso also said that “unless your picture goes wrong, it will be no good.”
Some of the paintings are thickly built in caroming wet-on-wet strokes and stabs, as if aping the deft flourishes of the old masters. A prime example is the lavish “Portrait of a Man With Sword and Flower,” which reinterprets one of Velázquez’s dwarfs. His comic legs are so splayed that the soles of his nailed boots point in opposite directions; his undulant grisaille face, taut and knowing, has fish-skeleton eyebrows.
Other works are so sketchy as to be more bare canvas than paint. The light-to-heavy range is spelled out across four relatively pale gray and blue paintings on one wall; they offer female nudes, alone or not, and a bust of a beruffled court painter in profile. They culminate in an image of a nude accompanied by a musketeer and, behind them, a large phallic finger that may make you rub your eyes once or twice.
The gallery of etchings makes a perfect foil for the paintings. They show Picasso shaking this alchemical medium to its foundations, often by introducing a lithography crayon, while ransacking history even more actively. The frequently ribald costume dramas or studio scenes (or both) that result are rendered in a manner that can be as dainty and refined as the paintings are not.
Especially telling are two states of an etching at the end of a long wall. They depict an artist gussied up like Rembrandt working from the model; but the main effect is a dense squall of scribbles, spirals and scratches that nearly obliterates them. It is as if the pressure of Picasso’s final years generated its own weather system.
In “The Celestina,” a storyboard mosaic of 66 small impressions on a single, large sheet, Picasso offers a seemingly encyclopedic survey of mark making and printing techniques. Don’t miss the short man — naked, bald and quite Picassoesque — staring out at us from the crowded scene at the center of the bottom row.
Picasso worked in relative isolation during his last decade, but it is hard to believe that a competitive lifer like himself didn’t keep up to some degree. He must have known Dubuffet’s big-headed figures, vigorously scratched in paint, from the late 1940s; the CoBrA group’s colorful figurative shenanigans of the 1950s; or even Jackson Pollock’s last quasi-figurative works.
Closer to home, Picasso’s active involvement with ceramics in the 1950s could have contributed to the shorthand speed of these paintings. Until 1953 he also had direct contact with the art made by Claude and Paloma, his children with Françoise Gilot. And his paintings of them, like those from the ’30s of Maya, his daughter with Marie-Thérèse Walter, tend to have open, seemingly unfinished surfaces and a monstrous scale that points toward the musketeers.
This show should relieve doubts about the essential role of commercial galleries in a vital art scene. Anything this charged and unforgettable is bound to nourish anyone who sees it, but especially artists, regardless of affiliations of style or medium. It reveals one of their greatest going all out, providing a breathtaking reminder that art can be anything an artist wants it to be, as long as it is driven by inner necessity, ruthless self-scrutiny and a determination to make every attempt not to repeat the past.
In the end, such inoculations are the only real protection against the vicissitudes of opinion. Art that successfully internalizes them will in all likelihood come to be seen as part of its own time and retain a vigor that is capable of inspiring the art of the future. That is the feat of Picasso’s extraordinary final offerings.
“Picasso: Mosqueteros” remains on view through June 6 at the Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, Chelsea; (212) 741-1717, gagosian.com.
By ROBERTA SMITH
In the main, Picasso only got better. That’s the take-away from the staggering exhibition of Picasso’s late paintings and prints at the Gagosian Gallery.
One of the best shows to be seen in New York since the turn of the century, it proves that contrary to decades of received opinion, Picasso didn’t skitter irretrievably into an abyss of kitsch, incoherence or irrelevance after this or that high-water mark. For some, his decline began as early as 1914, when he and Braque went their separate ways after inventing Cubism. Others deferred until the arrival of the bourgeois Olga Khokhlova in 1917, or the pliant Marie-Thérèse Walter in 1927, or the end of World War II. But the mid-1950s have been generally accepted as the point of no return.
That stance has steadily eroded over the last 25 years, and should finally bite the dust here. The 50 paintings and 49 prints on view demonstrate that in the decade preceding his death in 1973 at 91, Picasso painted, as usual, for his life. But his life was drawing to a close, and pressure was mounting. He diverted it into paintings whose emotional rawness, physical immediacy and often wicked pictorial joyfulness were not quite like anything he had made before. They may not have changed the course of art, but give them time. First they deserve their due.
This is not the first big exhibition of late Picasso. But it may come at an unusually receptive time, when art is wide open, and the understanding of what it takes to be an artist has gotten a bit fuzzy around the edges. Or perhaps this show represents an unusually rigorous sampling of the last decade, having been chosen by John Richardson, Picasso’s formidable biographer, and superbly installed by him in the elegant, austere, sky-lighted galleries in Gagosian’s West 21st Street space in Chelsea.
Like the retrospective of Piero Manzoni that recently filled Gagosian’s West 24th Street emporium, “Picasso: Mosqueteros” should make any museum glow green with envy. And it looks better than just about any museum could manage. Free of wall texts and free of charge, it assumes that the public knows how to look at art and keeps distractions to a minimum.
As befits its title, the selection abounds with paintings of big-headed musketeers and matadors. Extravagantly clothed and mustachioed, they present an opportunity for excoriating self-portraiture disguised as caricature, while also dueling with past masters like Velázquez, Manet and Rembrandt.
There are thick-limbed figures of several kinds: entangled lovers whose mouths sometimes merge in desperate kisses; female nudes folded this way and that, with boxy feet and pebble-round toes; and a few male nudes that recall Cézanne’s bather in the Museum of Modern Art or the kouroi statues of archaic Greece, here seen in a golden Arcadian light heated to a brash egg-yolk yellow.
In this show the late paintings often have a fierce, antic urgency that recalls “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Their scale and surfaces can be jarring, too close for comfort from any range. The figures have prominent black eyes that resemble those of the demoiselles, as well as of Picasso himself (as Mr. Richardson pointed out in a recent newspaper article). But this late style is softer and more fluid, a combination of painting, drawing and calligraphy that verges on automatism.
It makes as much sense to call it deconstructionist as Expressionist. The images disintegrate and recombine as you look, keeping every particle of paint and every scintilla of gesture in view while often cracking wise. In one of the show’s most haunting images, the terrified, seemingly flayed face of a matador is rendered in offhand smearings of lavender. The bullfighter may be looking at death; the surface laughs in its face.
In his catalog essay Mr. Richardson writes that Picasso said that technique was important, “on condition that one has so much ... that it completely ceases to exist.” But according to a short film playing in a small side gallery, Picasso also said that “unless your picture goes wrong, it will be no good.”
Some of the paintings are thickly built in caroming wet-on-wet strokes and stabs, as if aping the deft flourishes of the old masters. A prime example is the lavish “Portrait of a Man With Sword and Flower,” which reinterprets one of Velázquez’s dwarfs. His comic legs are so splayed that the soles of his nailed boots point in opposite directions; his undulant grisaille face, taut and knowing, has fish-skeleton eyebrows.
Other works are so sketchy as to be more bare canvas than paint. The light-to-heavy range is spelled out across four relatively pale gray and blue paintings on one wall; they offer female nudes, alone or not, and a bust of a beruffled court painter in profile. They culminate in an image of a nude accompanied by a musketeer and, behind them, a large phallic finger that may make you rub your eyes once or twice.
The gallery of etchings makes a perfect foil for the paintings. They show Picasso shaking this alchemical medium to its foundations, often by introducing a lithography crayon, while ransacking history even more actively. The frequently ribald costume dramas or studio scenes (or both) that result are rendered in a manner that can be as dainty and refined as the paintings are not.
Especially telling are two states of an etching at the end of a long wall. They depict an artist gussied up like Rembrandt working from the model; but the main effect is a dense squall of scribbles, spirals and scratches that nearly obliterates them. It is as if the pressure of Picasso’s final years generated its own weather system.
In “The Celestina,” a storyboard mosaic of 66 small impressions on a single, large sheet, Picasso offers a seemingly encyclopedic survey of mark making and printing techniques. Don’t miss the short man — naked, bald and quite Picassoesque — staring out at us from the crowded scene at the center of the bottom row.
Picasso worked in relative isolation during his last decade, but it is hard to believe that a competitive lifer like himself didn’t keep up to some degree. He must have known Dubuffet’s big-headed figures, vigorously scratched in paint, from the late 1940s; the CoBrA group’s colorful figurative shenanigans of the 1950s; or even Jackson Pollock’s last quasi-figurative works.
Closer to home, Picasso’s active involvement with ceramics in the 1950s could have contributed to the shorthand speed of these paintings. Until 1953 he also had direct contact with the art made by Claude and Paloma, his children with Françoise Gilot. And his paintings of them, like those from the ’30s of Maya, his daughter with Marie-Thérèse Walter, tend to have open, seemingly unfinished surfaces and a monstrous scale that points toward the musketeers.
This show should relieve doubts about the essential role of commercial galleries in a vital art scene. Anything this charged and unforgettable is bound to nourish anyone who sees it, but especially artists, regardless of affiliations of style or medium. It reveals one of their greatest going all out, providing a breathtaking reminder that art can be anything an artist wants it to be, as long as it is driven by inner necessity, ruthless self-scrutiny and a determination to make every attempt not to repeat the past.
In the end, such inoculations are the only real protection against the vicissitudes of opinion. Art that successfully internalizes them will in all likelihood come to be seen as part of its own time and retain a vigor that is capable of inspiring the art of the future. That is the feat of Picasso’s extraordinary final offerings.
“Picasso: Mosqueteros” remains on view through June 6 at the Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, Chelsea; (212) 741-1717, gagosian.com.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Hegel's Aesthetics
The principal aim of art is not, therefore, to imitate nature, to decorate our surroundings, to prompt us to engage in moral or political action, or to shock us out of our complacency. It is to allow us to contemplate and enjoy created images of our own spiritual freedom—images that are beautiful precisely because they give expression to our freedom. Art's purpose, in other words, is to enable us to bring to mind the truth about ourselves, and so to become aware of who we truly are. Art is there not just for art's sake, but for beauty's sake, that is, for the sake of a distinctively sensuous form of human self-expression and self-understanding.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-aesthetics/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-aesthetics/
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Let there be by Jimmy Chen
There is an overpass above the highway. There is a barbed-wire fence that prevents pedestrians from jumping off the overpass. There are electrical wires above the overpass, conducting electricity from one side of the freeway to the other.
There is a bird that flies into a wire and falls onto the barbed-wire fence and dies. It stays there for days, dead. It rains, it pours. The sun, it shines. The bird is still there. The cars rush ahead below, driven by nervous people with unclear goals.
There is a large building on one side of the overpass. There is a two bedroom condominium inside. There is a man lying down on a futon after work, eating a tangerine and listening to this ceiling. There is an obese woman walking around loudly in her condominium. Her floor is the man's ceiling. There is no humor in this world.
There is saxophone in a studio. A man with excessively curly hair is playing the saxophone while being recorded. The notes that come out of the saxophone, and their relationships to each other, can be described by the word ‘horrible.’ He is famous. His music is horrible. His name is Kenny G.
There is a woman at work. There are two speakers. There is a CD drive. There is a play button. The woman at work has pushed the play button and Kenny G—or at least the digital semblance of his once manifest presence—plays horrible music. There is a stop button. It will not be pushed.
There is a man at work. He sits next to the woman who plays Kenny G all day. He is irritated because his job ‘sucks’, a word used to describe an abstract yet distinctly relevant negative feeling one has about the existence of an object, including persons, and the object’s relation to other objects.
There is a God. He creates light and sound. Everyone concentrates on the light and forgets about the sound, though there are sounds everywhere; the cars under the overpass, the obese footsteps above the ceiling, and the horrible music inside the speakers.
There is a man at work. There is a man at home. There is a man who can’t sleep in his bed. There is a man who can’t stay awake at work. There are dichotomies. There is the global economy. There is the falling American dollar. There is a mortgage. There is unemployment. There is welfare. There is homelessness. There is death. There is a man at work.
There is an overpass above the highway. There is a barbed-wire fence that prevents a man from jumping off the overpass on his way home from work. There is a dead bird hanging upside down from the barbed-wire fence. There is a man who stops to look at the bird. There is a sky happening behind all of this. It makes no sound.
There is a bird that flies into a wire and falls onto the barbed-wire fence and dies. It stays there for days, dead. It rains, it pours. The sun, it shines. The bird is still there. The cars rush ahead below, driven by nervous people with unclear goals.
There is a large building on one side of the overpass. There is a two bedroom condominium inside. There is a man lying down on a futon after work, eating a tangerine and listening to this ceiling. There is an obese woman walking around loudly in her condominium. Her floor is the man's ceiling. There is no humor in this world.
There is saxophone in a studio. A man with excessively curly hair is playing the saxophone while being recorded. The notes that come out of the saxophone, and their relationships to each other, can be described by the word ‘horrible.’ He is famous. His music is horrible. His name is Kenny G.
There is a woman at work. There are two speakers. There is a CD drive. There is a play button. The woman at work has pushed the play button and Kenny G—or at least the digital semblance of his once manifest presence—plays horrible music. There is a stop button. It will not be pushed.
There is a man at work. He sits next to the woman who plays Kenny G all day. He is irritated because his job ‘sucks’, a word used to describe an abstract yet distinctly relevant negative feeling one has about the existence of an object, including persons, and the object’s relation to other objects.
There is a God. He creates light and sound. Everyone concentrates on the light and forgets about the sound, though there are sounds everywhere; the cars under the overpass, the obese footsteps above the ceiling, and the horrible music inside the speakers.
There is a man at work. There is a man at home. There is a man who can’t sleep in his bed. There is a man who can’t stay awake at work. There are dichotomies. There is the global economy. There is the falling American dollar. There is a mortgage. There is unemployment. There is welfare. There is homelessness. There is death. There is a man at work.
There is an overpass above the highway. There is a barbed-wire fence that prevents a man from jumping off the overpass on his way home from work. There is a dead bird hanging upside down from the barbed-wire fence. There is a man who stops to look at the bird. There is a sky happening behind all of this. It makes no sound.
Friday, February 06, 2009
once upon a time that is an alternate now. from the diary of an old friend
I found it particularly hard to examine young girls my age, who rarely recognized me as a peer although I easily saw them in the light of girlfriends. By what cruel twist of luck had I been born as me, and they as them? I could just as easily have been born in Sub-Saharan Africa, and then it would have been me, undressing on that cold table, infected with a virus that would slowly strip me of my dignity and humanity. And maybe, in an alternate universe, it would have been her, awkwardly fiddling with her stethoscope, staring at me through eyes that brimmed with clumsy pity.
coraline
Its look and mood may remind adult viewers at various times of the dreamscapes of Tim Burton (with whom Mr. Selick worked on “Nightmare”), Guillermo del Toro and David Lynch. Like those filmmakers Mr. Selick is interested in childhood not as a condition of sentimentalized, passive innocence but rather as an active, seething state of receptivity in which consciousness itself is a site of wondrous, at times unbearable drama.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
barack obama's inaugural address
Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
Published: January 20, 2009
Following is the transcript of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:
Skip to next paragraphPRESIDENT BARACK Thank you. Thank you.
CROWD: Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!
My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation...
(APPLAUSE)
... as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.
The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.
Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.
(APPLAUSE)
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
(APPLAUSE)
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
(APPLAUSE)
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.
The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.
We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.
We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality...
(APPLAUSE)
... and lower its costs.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.
All this we can do. All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.
MR. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.
And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.
But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.
The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
(APPLAUSE)
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
(APPLAUSE)
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy, guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We'll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard- earned peace in Afghanistan.
With old friends and former foes, we'll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.
And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
(APPLAUSE)
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.
And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those...
(APPLAUSE)
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
(APPLAUSE)
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.
We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.
And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.
It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours.
It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.
These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
(APPLAUSE)
So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled.
In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river.
The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.
At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Thank you. God bless you.
(APPLAUSE)
And God bless the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
Published: January 20, 2009
Following is the transcript of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:
Skip to next paragraphPRESIDENT BARACK Thank you. Thank you.
CROWD: Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!
My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation...
(APPLAUSE)
... as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.
The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.
Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.
(APPLAUSE)
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
(APPLAUSE)
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.
It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.
Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
(APPLAUSE)
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.
The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth.
We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.
We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality...
(APPLAUSE)
... and lower its costs.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.
All this we can do. All this we will do.
Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply.
MR. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.
Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.
And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.
But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.
The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
(APPLAUSE)
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
(APPLAUSE)
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy, guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We'll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard- earned peace in Afghanistan.
With old friends and former foes, we'll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet.
We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.
And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."
(APPLAUSE)
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.
And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those...
(APPLAUSE)
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
(APPLAUSE)
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.
We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.
And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.
It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours.
It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.
These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
(APPLAUSE)
So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled.
In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river.
The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood.
At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Thank you. God bless you.
(APPLAUSE)
And God bless the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
Thursday, January 08, 2009
my artist statement from bklyn show
What is real and what is simulated?
Often, when people think of representational and figurative art, people think of art depicting the real, i.e. a recognizable object and scene. Representational art is usually juxtaposed to its supposed opposite, abstract art, and held up as retaining the strongest reference to the actual world. However, hidden behind this surface understanding of the term representational is its etymology: to represent. To represent something, by definition, is not to be the thing itself.
Most of the paintings within this show incorporate naturally occurring patterns including watermarks, thumbprints, and wood veins. Although each painting is abstract, each incorporates a form of natural reality and not its representation.
What does it mean for something to be natural?
Many philosophers, including Descartes and Plato, separated our perceived physical world from the abstract ideals of the mind. For Plato, geometry is an ideal form because logical tautologies are always true, despite what the physical world presents. In the case of Descartes, the mind is all we can know, because physical externality is always distanced from us by our filtering of perceived sensations. This conceptual separation of the ideal form from the natural still exists today and one such example is the duality of science versus art. Science, it is thought, objectively explains our natural world via empirically observed facts. Art, on the other hand, is thought to be subjective expressionism. But, don’t personal expressions factually occur? Once they are created, are they not empirical? Also, aren’t subjects necessary, at all times, for the contemplation of any ideal form? In other words, what are ideal forms if they are not contemplated by a subject?
My paintings work to defy conceptual dualities regularly accepted by Western culture. Geometric patterns, ideal forms, pictures of physics problems, and math are regularly featured within my work next to poetry, natural patterns, intuitive marks, and happenstance. These supposedly diametric aspects of life weave into one another until the extremes wear away.
Often, when people think of representational and figurative art, people think of art depicting the real, i.e. a recognizable object and scene. Representational art is usually juxtaposed to its supposed opposite, abstract art, and held up as retaining the strongest reference to the actual world. However, hidden behind this surface understanding of the term representational is its etymology: to represent. To represent something, by definition, is not to be the thing itself.
Most of the paintings within this show incorporate naturally occurring patterns including watermarks, thumbprints, and wood veins. Although each painting is abstract, each incorporates a form of natural reality and not its representation.
What does it mean for something to be natural?
Many philosophers, including Descartes and Plato, separated our perceived physical world from the abstract ideals of the mind. For Plato, geometry is an ideal form because logical tautologies are always true, despite what the physical world presents. In the case of Descartes, the mind is all we can know, because physical externality is always distanced from us by our filtering of perceived sensations. This conceptual separation of the ideal form from the natural still exists today and one such example is the duality of science versus art. Science, it is thought, objectively explains our natural world via empirically observed facts. Art, on the other hand, is thought to be subjective expressionism. But, don’t personal expressions factually occur? Once they are created, are they not empirical? Also, aren’t subjects necessary, at all times, for the contemplation of any ideal form? In other words, what are ideal forms if they are not contemplated by a subject?
My paintings work to defy conceptual dualities regularly accepted by Western culture. Geometric patterns, ideal forms, pictures of physics problems, and math are regularly featured within my work next to poetry, natural patterns, intuitive marks, and happenstance. These supposedly diametric aspects of life weave into one another until the extremes wear away.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
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