Art and writing languish when kept in the dark--whether the dark is a closet, a binder, a desk drawer, or a computer file. John and I were having this conversation with some friends just the other night. For me, the worst thing about bringing art home after an exhibition, isn't the fact that it didn't sell, but the fact that it is going back in the dark, back to a place where I almost want to say it isn't "art" any longer, because the encounter, the potential for it to become part of a real engagement, is gone. If there is no one there to experience it, is the finished work of art still a work of art?
With that question and those thoughts in mind, I decided last night that I would share some writing on this blog that would otherwise continue to hang out bound between the covers of my official dissertation copy with no where to go. Instead of waiting until (if) I find a publisher, why not share now, I thought. And why not do it in installments--a tradition I happen to like quite a bit.
So here is the first installment of The Coffeehouse Sheherazade. It's an experimental, philosophical novella that was part of my "experimental" and "non-traditional" doctoral dissertation. So, in an effort to bring words back to light/life, I hope you'll become part of the process, by clicking on the link, reading, and after that following along!
http://lorianneparker.com/images/Coffeehouse_Sheherazade_Installment_1.pdf
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Question of Truth in the Photographs of Simen Johan
"With their imposing size, articulated textures, and lifelike poses, the animals in Simen Johan's photographs have an uncanny quality of being literally present, as if they are not just recorded by the camera but are actual animals seen up close through a pane of clear glass."*
In Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes, two owls sit on a picnic table, two foxes stand together in the snow, bears and monkeys forage for food in a garbage dump, and a lone buffalo lies seemingly resigned in another garbage dump--this one made of inedible detritus where the surroundings have gone gray and the bright colors of the scraps pawed through by the bears and monkeys are nowhere to be seen.
The viewer may stand before the photographs and first think to herself that indeed she is looking at the truth: An animal caught mid-pose in world behind the glass. But as she looks closer there is quick realization that things can't possibly be as they seem. There is an eeriness to the owls, for instance, something not quite right when you look closely at their eyes. They are partially closed, squinting. It occurs to you that the owls were dead when the photograph was taken and probably never sat together on their picnic table at all.
In these photographs, Johan plays with the notion of truth. The truth of a photograph as well as the idea of truly seeing animals "as they are." The comparison between his photographs and dioramas found in natural history museums is inevitable. In fact, some of his subjects are taxidermied specimens on display in such settings. What is interesting is the way Johan's work pushes the viewer to consider not just the questionable truth of the photographs themselves, but the ways a diorama in a natural history museum can itself never present "truth," even as it works so hard to do that very thing. The diorama is constructed as if there are no humans present. The human visitors who look at the animals on the other side of the glass are lead to believe that they are glimpsing the essential nature of the animals on display: So this is what deer, moose, foxes, orangutans do in their worlds when we aren't around and can't see...
By creating compositions that are too impossible to be true, and yet seem so familiar and so real that we may want to insist that they are still true in some way, Johan offers wry commentary on the ways we as viewers, visitors, and learners project our desires and expectations onto what we see.
At the same time his photographs have a push-pull effect: I see the buffalo and I am drawn in. I realize the scene is impossible and I am pushed back. I sense the buffalo's resignation and am pulled in once again. The truth of the image, of course, doesn't matter. This is something else Johan's work suggests: that the demarcations between truth and fantasy aren't so distinct. In fact, fantasy, the notion that what we see is "true" or somehow "real" even though we "know" it can't be, is something we need. It propels us along. Keeps us moving forward. Hoping that the dream we want is alive just around the corner.
And where are we in the meantime as we hope for that next perfect, ideal thing? As I wrote a few blogs ago, we are in the until. Where we may always be as our fantasies of a "kingdom" or that ultimate, longed for existence shifts, changes, and once again slips out of reach.
There is something else about Johan's work that is its own reward: the more you look at the photographs, the more you see, and what becomes apparent the more time you spend in the gallery is the way they hold up aesthetically both up close and at a distance. Step closer and watch as parakeets and monkeys emerge from the background and colors and textures come into relief; step back and take in the shapes of bear bodies curved and arced and slumped over mounds of discarded food that begins to look like hills of flowers. Again the push and pull in another, equally intriguing way.
-- LAP
* The quotation at the beginning of this post is from Mark Scala, "Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes,"gallery guide, written to accompany Frist Center exhibition, on view from Feb. 20 through May 29, 2011.
In Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes, two owls sit on a picnic table, two foxes stand together in the snow, bears and monkeys forage for food in a garbage dump, and a lone buffalo lies seemingly resigned in another garbage dump--this one made of inedible detritus where the surroundings have gone gray and the bright colors of the scraps pawed through by the bears and monkeys are nowhere to be seen.
The viewer may stand before the photographs and first think to herself that indeed she is looking at the truth: An animal caught mid-pose in world behind the glass. But as she looks closer there is quick realization that things can't possibly be as they seem. There is an eeriness to the owls, for instance, something not quite right when you look closely at their eyes. They are partially closed, squinting. It occurs to you that the owls were dead when the photograph was taken and probably never sat together on their picnic table at all.
In these photographs, Johan plays with the notion of truth. The truth of a photograph as well as the idea of truly seeing animals "as they are." The comparison between his photographs and dioramas found in natural history museums is inevitable. In fact, some of his subjects are taxidermied specimens on display in such settings. What is interesting is the way Johan's work pushes the viewer to consider not just the questionable truth of the photographs themselves, but the ways a diorama in a natural history museum can itself never present "truth," even as it works so hard to do that very thing. The diorama is constructed as if there are no humans present. The human visitors who look at the animals on the other side of the glass are lead to believe that they are glimpsing the essential nature of the animals on display: So this is what deer, moose, foxes, orangutans do in their worlds when we aren't around and can't see...
By creating compositions that are too impossible to be true, and yet seem so familiar and so real that we may want to insist that they are still true in some way, Johan offers wry commentary on the ways we as viewers, visitors, and learners project our desires and expectations onto what we see.
At the same time his photographs have a push-pull effect: I see the buffalo and I am drawn in. I realize the scene is impossible and I am pushed back. I sense the buffalo's resignation and am pulled in once again. The truth of the image, of course, doesn't matter. This is something else Johan's work suggests: that the demarcations between truth and fantasy aren't so distinct. In fact, fantasy, the notion that what we see is "true" or somehow "real" even though we "know" it can't be, is something we need. It propels us along. Keeps us moving forward. Hoping that the dream we want is alive just around the corner.
And where are we in the meantime as we hope for that next perfect, ideal thing? As I wrote a few blogs ago, we are in the until. Where we may always be as our fantasies of a "kingdom" or that ultimate, longed for existence shifts, changes, and once again slips out of reach.
There is something else about Johan's work that is its own reward: the more you look at the photographs, the more you see, and what becomes apparent the more time you spend in the gallery is the way they hold up aesthetically both up close and at a distance. Step closer and watch as parakeets and monkeys emerge from the background and colors and textures come into relief; step back and take in the shapes of bear bodies curved and arced and slumped over mounds of discarded food that begins to look like hills of flowers. Again the push and pull in another, equally intriguing way.
-- LAP
* The quotation at the beginning of this post is from Mark Scala, "Simen Johan: Until the Kingdom Comes,"gallery guide, written to accompany Frist Center exhibition, on view from Feb. 20 through May 29, 2011.
On the Swampy Nature of Embodiment and artist Tetsumi Kudo
I am thinking about the body today, nothing profound or new even, just simply its ebbs, flows, surprises, gaps, and randomly skipped beats. We (humans) live and move--for we must approach it this way or we wouldn't get much done, would we?--as if it is reliable, firm ground, the raft we know will be there if the waters get too rough. And we can rely on it, to some extent, and we can even take care of it (exercise, eating a good diet, etc.) to make it even more reliable, but at the same time we inhabit that strange space of not knowing when it may fall out from under us, when we may have to grapple to feel steady again. We may tend to perceive ourselves as whole, a single entity closed off from the rest of the world, but in reality we live in a constantly moving dance. Shape-shifting with the elements. A well-informed friend tells me the number of E. coli in an inch of my intestines outnumbers all the grains of sand in the Arabian desert. In this instance I am host, and, of course, this isn't the only example. Every time I breath my immune system engages in battle with all the germs and bacteria I inhale. Every minute I live bacteria dwells on my skin and my all-too-human material body is host once again. I am thinking about this and the fact that we are all made of stardust: even wilder is the fact that though my right arm and left arm contain start "stuff," the stars this stuff is from are most likely not the same. I have been studying and reading about the work of artist Tetsumi Kudo lately, and find he knew how to represent this body incredibly--as always moving, open to, and part of the rest of the world in an absolutely gorgeous (and often grotesque, which doesn't negate the gorgeous necessarily) way. Bodies become swampy and swamps give rise to flesh. Kudo also reminds us of our vulnerability--the susceptiblity of embodiment to the swampiness of the stars and the inevitability of decay. I'll probably write more about him later (his place in postwar art, his response to a new nuclear reality, his explorations of a new, horrific vulnerability), but for now I'll just leave you with these photos. And make sure to check out the link and more of the images online. Once I started looking, I found I couldn't stop.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Thinking of Until (and of the work of Simen Johan [pt.1])
The meaning of until.
If I say to you, for example, before hanging up the phone: I will read this book until you arrive, what matters? As I consider the question I realize that what is important may not be your arrival, which may or may not arrive, but what happens until then, which is to say what happens now, not in the future. It is what I am doing until. In this case reading the book I hold in my hands. Until. It is the emphatic nature of the until.
I want to dwell in this moment. In the until. And doing so pulls me back from this place called "after" that I imagine will come, pulls me back from this place that never was. And tells me: stay here, stay in the present. Which is to say, the place I always dwell. Until you arrive, until the alarm rings, until the storm comes, until the sun rises.
And so it is the case with the work of Swedish artist Simen Johan, whose exhibition at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts from now until (or through) the end of May, is so aptly titled Until the Kingdom Comes. Until the kingdom, not when the kingdom, after the kingdom, before the kingdom, but until. Beginning with the title, the exhibition is very much an invitation to reside in the present. For this is what until is. The living and breathing that is happening already, and NOT the imagined life or breath beyond death that may happen after the kingdom (whatever it may be, if it may be, even if it will be, if one doubts (feels positive) it ever will be) comes.
In Johan's work is the present in which the subjects are the ambiguous inhabitants of the place of until. Until the Kingdom comes. Take the image of the foxes (you can find it here). There are two. They stand together as a pair, their bodies touching: one cries, the other has blood on his or her muzzle. They are foxes and yet one shed tears like a human. They are so alive in their hyper realistic, glossily photographed scene, and yet, the viewer may realize, they can't be alive, that the scene doesn't make sense--neither the detail nor the sharpness nor the expressions on their faces. For what pair of foxes would stand together this way: huddled together as foxes become elongated mournful nest turned on its side in the snow, in a pairing off that signifies the coupling of two Homo sapiens--a tail instead of arm wrapped around the other, a signification of that other animal (now invisible) behind the camera? For what pair of foxes would stand together in this manner, so still, so unnatural, as if posing for the photographer, for Johan himself? And the seemingly so alive foxes we realize, must not be alive at all, the photograph (again, always?) is a trick. For how could those two be alive while standing so quietly, so artificially, in their quiet snow-bound beauty? And here we may begin to move into the meta analyis, asking questions about the truth of the photograph itself. How was it taken? Is it a single shot? Is it the result of manipulation? Where did the foxes come from? And what about all that snow? Look closer and we realize the closer we look the fewer answers there are. About the photograph, the process behind it, and, of course, the foxes. Look closer and we may realize that none of the facts matter.
This is the until. In this instance.
Until the Kingdom Comes (whatever, if ever, because it isn't about the undefined kingdom at all) we stand in ambiguity. Knowing we stare at two foxes but not knowing what we see as we inhabit a neverending moment when the after is held in abeyance ...
Until.
If I say to you, for example, before hanging up the phone: I will read this book until you arrive, what matters? As I consider the question I realize that what is important may not be your arrival, which may or may not arrive, but what happens until then, which is to say what happens now, not in the future. It is what I am doing until. In this case reading the book I hold in my hands. Until. It is the emphatic nature of the until.
I want to dwell in this moment. In the until. And doing so pulls me back from this place called "after" that I imagine will come, pulls me back from this place that never was. And tells me: stay here, stay in the present. Which is to say, the place I always dwell. Until you arrive, until the alarm rings, until the storm comes, until the sun rises.
And so it is the case with the work of Swedish artist Simen Johan, whose exhibition at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts from now until (or through) the end of May, is so aptly titled Until the Kingdom Comes. Until the kingdom, not when the kingdom, after the kingdom, before the kingdom, but until. Beginning with the title, the exhibition is very much an invitation to reside in the present. For this is what until is. The living and breathing that is happening already, and NOT the imagined life or breath beyond death that may happen after the kingdom (whatever it may be, if it may be, even if it will be, if one doubts (feels positive) it ever will be) comes.
In Johan's work is the present in which the subjects are the ambiguous inhabitants of the place of until. Until the Kingdom comes. Take the image of the foxes (you can find it here). There are two. They stand together as a pair, their bodies touching: one cries, the other has blood on his or her muzzle. They are foxes and yet one shed tears like a human. They are so alive in their hyper realistic, glossily photographed scene, and yet, the viewer may realize, they can't be alive, that the scene doesn't make sense--neither the detail nor the sharpness nor the expressions on their faces. For what pair of foxes would stand together this way: huddled together as foxes become elongated mournful nest turned on its side in the snow, in a pairing off that signifies the coupling of two Homo sapiens--a tail instead of arm wrapped around the other, a signification of that other animal (now invisible) behind the camera? For what pair of foxes would stand together in this manner, so still, so unnatural, as if posing for the photographer, for Johan himself? And the seemingly so alive foxes we realize, must not be alive at all, the photograph (again, always?) is a trick. For how could those two be alive while standing so quietly, so artificially, in their quiet snow-bound beauty? And here we may begin to move into the meta analyis, asking questions about the truth of the photograph itself. How was it taken? Is it a single shot? Is it the result of manipulation? Where did the foxes come from? And what about all that snow? Look closer and we realize the closer we look the fewer answers there are. About the photograph, the process behind it, and, of course, the foxes. Look closer and we may realize that none of the facts matter.
This is the until. In this instance.
Until the Kingdom Comes (whatever, if ever, because it isn't about the undefined kingdom at all) we stand in ambiguity. Knowing we stare at two foxes but not knowing what we see as we inhabit a neverending moment when the after is held in abeyance ...
Until.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
In the Shadows
Of course we are in the shadows--
Of Hiroshima. Nagasaki.
As we have been (separately and together and differently and in so many different ways and along so many different fault lines) since 1945. And these past few days those shadows are in relief, have reared their heads, become loud, intrusive. For those of us who have been able (have had the privilege) of forgetting. Or simply living as if we can. There are those who remind us, have reminded us. Just like the post-earthquake, tsunami reactors are reminding us too.
I am thinking of Iri and Toshi Maruki (their after-Hiroshima paintings). For more than 30 years painting day after day echoes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for more than 30 years painting what started a few days after the first bomb when Iri and Toshi went to Hiroshima to look after their family. For the past few days, I have been remembering them, their work, my trip to Saitama, Japan, in 2006, when I stood in front of panels so large I couldn't even begin to take them in. And I wondered how anyone could even begin to paint something so large and not be overwhelmed by the very act of doing it. But I wasn't there. Maybe they were overwhelmed but had that rare willingness to stay in that space and keep going. Because they needed to. Because they couldn't put it out of their minds or bodies. Because they had made a commitment to keep putting the topic in the spotlight.
I remember that day. Sitting with my friend from the past (from my undergraduate life in Ellensburg, Washington), Tetsuya, who was living far from home back then after being transplanted for six months to a funny little city in the Pacific Northwest that was the home of the "Rodeo Grandmothers." Before our trip that afternoon in 2006, he had never been to the Maruki Gallery either. Indeed, as we walked from room to room and came upon paintings that continued to grow in size, we were both lost. Terrified. Stunned. Walking gingerly on the sharp edge of grief fed by trauma for which there is no words.
I feel like there aren't words today. Even as I write. Even as I engage in such cliches about not having the language to write what I think I want to say.
I can't take it all in: everything that is happening right now in Japan. I wonder how anyone could or what that even means. I am powerless and hoping for the best and acknowledging how feeble that word "hope" actually is.
So tonight I am remembering those moments of friendship outside on the back porch of the Maruki Gallery overlooking the river where every year lanterns are sent along its waters in endless gestures of farewell. I am remembering that and the years of work and resolve of Iri and Toshi Maruki who painted and kept remembering.
Painting Ghost. Fire. Water. Rainbow. Boys and Girls. Atomic Desert. Bamboo Thicket. Rescue. Yaizu. Petition. Mother and Child. Floating Lanterns. Death of American Prisoners of War. Crows. and Nagasaki: all of these words titles of their memories.
http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn/english/indexE.htm
Of Hiroshima. Nagasaki.
As we have been (separately and together and differently and in so many different ways and along so many different fault lines) since 1945. And these past few days those shadows are in relief, have reared their heads, become loud, intrusive. For those of us who have been able (have had the privilege) of forgetting. Or simply living as if we can. There are those who remind us, have reminded us. Just like the post-earthquake, tsunami reactors are reminding us too.
I am thinking of Iri and Toshi Maruki (their after-Hiroshima paintings). For more than 30 years painting day after day echoes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for more than 30 years painting what started a few days after the first bomb when Iri and Toshi went to Hiroshima to look after their family. For the past few days, I have been remembering them, their work, my trip to Saitama, Japan, in 2006, when I stood in front of panels so large I couldn't even begin to take them in. And I wondered how anyone could even begin to paint something so large and not be overwhelmed by the very act of doing it. But I wasn't there. Maybe they were overwhelmed but had that rare willingness to stay in that space and keep going. Because they needed to. Because they couldn't put it out of their minds or bodies. Because they had made a commitment to keep putting the topic in the spotlight.
I remember that day. Sitting with my friend from the past (from my undergraduate life in Ellensburg, Washington), Tetsuya, who was living far from home back then after being transplanted for six months to a funny little city in the Pacific Northwest that was the home of the "Rodeo Grandmothers." Before our trip that afternoon in 2006, he had never been to the Maruki Gallery either. Indeed, as we walked from room to room and came upon paintings that continued to grow in size, we were both lost. Terrified. Stunned. Walking gingerly on the sharp edge of grief fed by trauma for which there is no words.
I feel like there aren't words today. Even as I write. Even as I engage in such cliches about not having the language to write what I think I want to say.
I can't take it all in: everything that is happening right now in Japan. I wonder how anyone could or what that even means. I am powerless and hoping for the best and acknowledging how feeble that word "hope" actually is.
So tonight I am remembering those moments of friendship outside on the back porch of the Maruki Gallery overlooking the river where every year lanterns are sent along its waters in endless gestures of farewell. I am remembering that and the years of work and resolve of Iri and Toshi Maruki who painted and kept remembering.
Painting Ghost. Fire. Water. Rainbow. Boys and Girls. Atomic Desert. Bamboo Thicket. Rescue. Yaizu. Petition. Mother and Child. Floating Lanterns. Death of American Prisoners of War. Crows. and Nagasaki: all of these words titles of their memories.
http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn/english/indexE.htm
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