Check this. A couple months ago I had a conversation with another volunteer, Prashanth Irudanaraj, at the Contemporary about how contemporary art was like a religion, with the artistic director being the preacher, the artists, like saints, sinners, stories, etc.
And there's all this talk of the NEA being defunded, and how the arts are constantly being financially slashed at, and we are all hungry. I just read this article that addressed the finances and start-up of the Scientologists.
Hey, contemporary art/performance/ephemera should pursue true religious, tax-free, undeniable social status by exploring the technicalities of becoming an actual religion.
I'm sitting in the MOCA GA front-desk seat, watching Marina Abramovic slam a skull repeatedly, with meat thump sounds, into her bare and beautifully adorned solar plexus. My first mental question was not discursive, but physical; are her breasts real? When I watched the recording of the Marina lecture at SCAD earlier this year, I was similarly impressed by her figure, which echos that of a dancer, even now that Marina is in her 60's. But enough of this talk of titties and such, because obviously, she has, in the tradition of gorgeous wild women, is (maybe by now) accustomed to utilizing the distraction/attraction of such.
Maybe I'll get my chance to be an absurdly gorgeous witch woman without being burned too, although I'm sure we both have some scars already, love/hate them, and recognize the process. Plus, with these political "bulldog" women coming out of the woodwork to join forces with the jowly white guys who knows how much longer before some f*ed up replay of Puritanism is enacted.
That is fear talking.
I digress, this piece, part of Abramovic's Balkan Erotic Epic, is all sex and death and feminine folklorish self-directed anger to me. Yep, she's very clear with the symbolism. Don't have to go far to perpetrate that mythology, everyday will suffice. Marina Abramovic is an Empress of some dimension, This I believe.
I've been struggling with the question of perpetuation. As in, if you observe a sickness, must you reproduce it in order to bring attention to it. For example, violence towards the feminine. An overly broad thought, but... this comes up everytime I read the news or listen to the radio. I want to share the observation that humanity daily attacks the reclining (peaceful) half of our natures in the name of thrill or speculation or just habit. So do I add to the melee with violent work? Or try to live by example?
This is why video attracts me, it moves fast, is flexible. But shifting gears, a new medium, and such a technical problem. I so love a quiet day of painting, the hand-made. Video means computer time, prolly more people time too, not to mention the inevitability of having to look at myself.
Back to the boobs, processing lady likeness today. It's rough to be sweet in this masculine world, with all it's gloating and feigning swoons, unless the breasts are right out front, acknowledged I suppose. Yep, there they are, quivering like bowls of everyone's favorite jelly. I don't just mean a girls actual breasts, but our soft qualities in general. They are lovely and recessive, showing them takes balls, even though everyone wants a look.
I'm going to make some work with my body, started with some back scratching yesterday, but I've never been a cutter, and I bruise easily... Claro, I like scars too, but I'm learning to preserve myself. Body and mind and spirit. Whatever it takes, I'm too delicate to beat myself up, I could get carried away and die. Seriously, I know that's childish to even consider.
I want to use my body beautifully, with articulation and respect. This is a new revelation!
Anyways, now I have my first ever real painting block... I'm still going through the motions, but truly displeased with the wasteful results, sometimes just making anything seems excessive. This is a main component to my new focus on photo/video. Travelling light.
Waste-not, want-not, but spend $ to make $. That the worst part of my painter's block is beating myself up for wasting time=money just sounds like whining. I do just love to paint; but can't seem to loosen up. It costs too much to just fuck up. Paint, money, brushes, possilbility of being arrested for shop-lifting (not anymore people, not a confession here). I'm thinking too much about the future DIRE economy. See this quality, of always expecting the worst financially. Debt is bad. My mom just lost her J.O.B. as did Karmadillo.
I'm afraid to go back to school just because of it. I always imagined myself an eternal student; perhaps an academic eventually, I can't fucking wait to be back in school. Problem is the loans are literally haunting my dreams. I dreamt I was older and more bitter, unable to afford a bedroom or a garden space, writing checks every month to a faceless monolith called Sallie Mae. Later in the dream I faced a messy room full of unfinished and complicated applications to which the competition is fierce and the entry fee much more than my meal for the day. Mountains out of molehills, yes, but....it's a big decision, maybe the biggest. OK OK OK OK OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOK
Yasshole.
"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."
— Anaïs Nin
