You've got to dig to dig it, you dig?
even he
has worked for the pleasure of bearing
no more than a scrap of himself
into this hall.
—a little hope, a little whimsy
before the loudspeaker blurts
and we leap up to become
Flight 828, now boarding at Gate 17.
Lejanía · Lisandro Meza Cumbias Colombianas
Cumbia Campesina · La Tropa Vallenata
Flor Maria · Aniceto Molina
A flower is a node on a network of botanical systems of interconnection and regeneration.
[…]
much of the beauty that moves us in the natural world is […] time itself as patterns, recurrences, the rhythmic passage of days and seasons and years, the lunar cycle and the tides, birth and death. As harmony, organization, coherence, pattern itself is a kind of beauty
Rebecca Solnit
Untitled (FG–maneuvers to expose an enchanted one) i
A section of Félix González-Torres‘s essay on Roni Horn’s The Gold Field, 1980-1982.
1990, L.A. The Gold Field. How can I deal with the Gold Field? I don’t quite know. But the Gold Field was there. Ross and I entered the Museum of Contemporary Art, and without knowing the work of Roni Horn we were blown away by the heroic, gentle and horizontal presence of this gift. There it was, in a white room, all by itself, it didn’t need company, it didn’t need anything. Sitting on the floor, ever so lightly. A new landscape, a possible horizon, a place of rest and absolute beauty. Waiting for the right viewer willing and needing to be moved to a place of the imagination. This piece is nothing more than a thin layer of gold. It is everything a good poem by Wallace Stevens is; precise, with no extra baggage, nothing extra. A poem that feels secure and dares to unravel itself, to become naked, to be enjoyed in a tactile manner, but beyond that, in an intellectual way too. Ross and I were lifted. That gesture was all we needed to rest, to think about the possibility of change. This showed the innate ability of an artist proposing to make this place a better place. How truly revolutionary.
This work was needed. This was an undiscovered ocean for us. It was impossible, yet it was real, we saw this landscape. Like no other landscape. We felt it. We traveled together to countless sunsets. But where did this object come from? Who produced this piece that risked itself by being so fragile, just laying on the floor, no base, no plexiglass box on top of it. How come we didn’t know about her work before, how come we missed so much? Roni’s work has never been the darling of the establishment. Of course not. Some people dismiss Roni’s work as pure formalism, as if such purity were possible after years of knowing that the act of looking at an object, any object, is transfigured by gender, race, socio-economic class, and sexual orientation. We cannot blame them for the emptiness in which they live, for they cannot see the almost perfect emotions and solutions her objects and writings give us. A place to dream, to regain energy, to dare. Ross and I always talked about this work, how much it affected us. After that any sunset became “The Gold Field.” Roni had named something that had always been there. Now we saw it through her eyes, her imagination.
Félix González-Torres, “1990: L.A., “The Gold Field” first appeared in the catalogue Roni Horn. Earths Grow Thick (Columbus: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1996). The text is reprinted with the kind permission of Roni Horn, the Wexner Centre for the Arts, and The Félix González-Torres Foundation.
A poem a product
suitable for interior use
the purple […]
enrolled me in its misery, mysterious mist
emanating
Tenha Fé, Pois Amanhã Um Lindo Dia Vai Nascer written by Jorge Ben, perfomed by Os Originais Do Samba.
splendid in the way
it keeps its steamy blood in, no matter
how bad it blushes.
It knows it can’t exist forever, so
it’s collecting as many flavors as it can—
Whenever I feel loss or lack, I imagine
The wind roaming outside of my childhood’s lair
And in my heart, I am already on my way
To some thrilling future
… Here’s the
future:
I laugh, because the pleasure was earned
yet vouchsafed,
and I made room for what was dead past and what
yet didn’t
exist.
All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, 2022. (Based on a novel, Im Westen nichts Neues, lit.?‘Nothing New in the West’ by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I).
Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, 1994.
“self-regenerative power lay in his joy in the ordinary, common experiences of day-to-day existence and particularly of contact with nature.” (RS)
“Who else is in the market for a pint
of papaya juice, a scruple of compassion
[…]
We want so much before it’s taken from us,
objects cry out, the things
of this world, they are magnificent,
they glow—the radiance archive,
everything that shines is in it.
Still, the lemon tree levies a tax upon my soul.
Flowers strike their tiny hammer blows.
The city makes its thousand demands,
the city is a honeycomb
of needs.
[…]
Right now, I tell you
I am listening to something that says
let it go, fear not, rise
along with me
into a sky the color of amethyst and copper dust.
It is not a voice, it is not even a bird,
but I am listening.
I believe it may be the light
itself speaking to me”
The Mercy Supermarket, Campbell McGrath; from New Yorker May 23, 2022 Issue