Pasquino in Rome
1. I was thrilled to find Pasquino in Smithsonian Magazine this month. I stumbled upon the statue in 1998, leaving Piazzo Navona in a fog of what must have been cheap, very cheap wine. It is strange to find an ancient statue, even in Rome, as thoroughly defaced and covered with graffiti and pamphlets as Pasquino, and, I admit, I was delighted to find that this rude behavior, this use of the statue for whatever grievance or injustice needed airing, had been the statue's purpose for centuries. Pasquino is still the definition of grass roots activism. In the wake of last week's historic rulings, it seemed the place to start.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/have-something-rude-say-put-it-2300-year-old-statute-rome-180955704/
2. DeWain Valentine does not quite have his deserved place in the history of light and space. While James Turrell is a household name and Robert Irwin commands respect among an increasingly large audience, Valentine has fallen through the cracks. Pacific Standard Time at the Getty began to change that and it appears that the momentum is continuing to shift in the artist having his first New York show in 30 years. While showing at David Zwirner is ascendancy of a kind, it is the museums that really need to fall in line. We'll keep waiting:
http://www.artnews.com/2015/06/26/big-pieces-of-the-sky-and-ocean-de-wain-valentine-on-his-first-new-york-solo-show-in-30-years/
3. Sarah Cain is certainly having a moment right now in Southern California, with solo shows at Honor Fraser as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. She also has been given ArtForum's 500 words in order to present her thoughts on her works. I am not sure what I think about her description of her practice, but the expanded discourse on artists of influence and artists who she chose to show her work beside from MCASD's collection is fascinating. Her inclusion of John Divola is, admittedly for me, a sort of "of course" moment. Divola was very invested in the type of abstract techniques that Cain still finds to be fertile:
http://artforum.com/words/id=53146
Video for the week:
4. Last week was among the most historic for the United States and a sweeping victory for progressives. While the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act and the decision of South Carolina lawmakers to have the confederate flag removed from their capital are massive in their own right, the lead was the decision for gay marriage, a sign that country is finally moving towards true equality. There was much joy and celebration in so many quarters, but I admit, it was the running of the interns from the Supreme Court, in possession of the ruling for their news outlets, that was among the most bizarre moments. I have to admit I had no idea the Supreme Court still issued decisions in such an analog manner. Maybe it is time for email atop that hill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1VycM1S3vQ
Poem of the week:
5. Over the years, I've enjoyed visiting the artist Mark Dutcher in his studio on Jefferson, Blvd in Los Angeles. Mark is such a pure spirit and his dedication to painting is total in the best possible way. It is always fun to see the myriad of influences and historical touchstones that he engages with at any given moment. Happily, Mark married his longtime partner David in front of a Cezanne painting due to the decision of the Supreme Court this week, one among so many moving moments of the week. Hart Crane has always meant a great deal to Mark, so I thought I would make Crane my poet of the week in tribute to Mark and David:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/exile-2/
One Click Deeper:
6. My favorite story about Hart Crane is a tragic one. The night Crane jumped to his death, the ship that carried him left Havana in the early evening, just as another writer, Ernest Hemingway, was pulling his boat in for the night after a day of fishing. The history of art is full of such encounters (the night Walt Whitman and Herman Melville stayed in the same hotel and did not know it, the random meeting of Sigmund Freud and Fredrich Nietzsche in a coffee shop in Vienna), and it is a pity that Crane's encounter has to be so dark. The Poetry Foundation has a good introduction to Hart Crane, which you can find here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/hart-crane#poet