The New As Nostalgia:

The Nostalgia of the new for the new, the instantaneousness of thought to the sharing, be it through mouth or writing becomes concrete, therefore a history mostly of the person. The new, immediately exhausted. The image of the lighter (2024, Untitled, After Godard) being from the past, being part of production, besides sharing an oblique history of a specific time and capital, however is reconstituted by a fresh rendering (a representation of a representation) again, has adopted a fresh agency that mirrors its past and therefore may collapse into an exhaustion of the new, that aches for its former being. A fragmented longing for the future as gemütlichkeit, having the fragile faith of Chanukah candles; to believe, but not too ardent, not with too much fervor. The faith may be modest as a faint breath. At early Bob Dylan concerts, fans held uplit matches, flickering lighters held on high, arms outstretched to exhibit a shared belief, a communion in the experienceof not directed at this fresh icon as in this nebulous energy, that now would be named meta, but then, at that time was the growing so-called power of the minions.

Godard’s “Alphaville” was the anti-belief, a gaze of the gangster film with a French patina, As in the film, one peers in to the refrigerator looking for faith or a cold chicken leg to calm the anxiety

My Work

 Images and words are the stuff of history spilling into clichés by their use. It is the cliché not the image, not the picture that reverberates and obliterates the authentic, which echoes the traffic of history. History being obstinate— is the freighted footprint of our existence. The mining of the cliché, excavating it’s remains as an ancestor, as a representation of a representation, as picture—co-opting it, infusing it with another agency—(Everything in the next world will be as it is in this world, just a little different) or as Jason’s ship Argo, (it is not the same ship he started out with considering it’s repairs from rot and damage)—revitalizes its tenants— beside history, its popularity, repetition, myth—rents the cliché as we understand it, and its purpose outside its conditional agency and separate from comfort of its couching not as familiar or non- threatening but as edgy unsure, captivating. With overuse the cliché becomes its own cliché. And we always overuse. 

I use images, from photographs or film stills (still-life) to construct small vignettes which have meaning for me. I had once said I make lies not art because the truth hurts. Which truth?
 I choose and manipulate fragments from films, photos—again, my own or others—, churning feelings and meaning; several thoughts rent mute, not spoken but sensed a meta cognition. This is the gist of our interior selves as story. Pictures, singularly or in juxtaposition with others act like a mise en scene. It is not what is seen but what is suggested by the seen/scene that is the condition of a possible human activity. A clarity of intent obscured, filtered, suggests an enigmatic reading. Images occupy the fragile working place of memory/imagination. Agitating this cleavage between thought and action develops the inchoate into something like a familiar but not familiar; an understanding though fleeting. My work is a representation of a representation, an acknowledgement of the cliché, a churning of personal and historical experiences to see what appears.
From the first known and thousands of unknown images etched in caves in rocks to the paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, films, videos, animations—all images edge to edge could probably girdle the Earth; once? twice? several times? This thought is bewildering.
We leave our traces, our marks, perhaps someone will notice…

The Understanding

What happened to the understanding? What is the story behind the naming? What is the story behind the story?

Name of person, name of animal, name of plant—a tree understands it’s a tree, understands its history, understands its descendants, but is a tree. Its story told through the rustle of leaves, the sound, the rhythm, its striations, creases and folds; patches of peeling, curling bark, a molting cycle. Leaves float from branches. The tree marks time, time marks it. The tree is a witness, mute taciturn, sentient in its watch.

Simple Things 2019-20

I care about the living
I care about the dead.
I care about the lost
I care about the saved.
I lament, I regret, I grieve,
I hope, I despair—I love.
I remember the unspoken
I am cursed by memory
I have forgotten to forget.
I have not forgotten pain
nor joy,
I have forgotten none of the forgotten.
I  have not forgotten to breathe
I have not forgotten bloods course,
its taste, its stain.
Hear it, its touch, smell it, its memory.

Churning of seasons, of obstinance

of the unknown/known.
the shifting shift shifting.
I remember what is to come,
which living blinds.
Simple things.