Acts of Self-Erasure, Anahid Nersessian. December 13, 2024. A new exhibition of the conceptual artist Christine Kozlov shows how she worked by concealing her own tracks.
AG2024_1133993a
AG2024_1134192a and the game of finding meaning in coincidence
Hello to the era of going to the store to buy more ice
because we are running out.
Hello to feelings that arrive unintroduced.
Hello to the nonfunctional sprig of parsley
and the game of finding meaning in coincidence.
Cassette County, David Berman
AG2024_1134189a or in many a poem about green
Lawns and fields and hills and wide old velvet
sleeves, green things. They stretch, fold, roll away,
unfurl and calm the eye. Look lush in paintings.
Battles are fought on greens. Or you could spread
a meal and sup. How secretly they lie, floors of
distant forests. Next comes the grave, in many a
poem about green. But this is not a poem. This is a
billboard for frozen green peas. Frozen green peas
are good for pain.
Short Talk on Pain, Anne Carson
another world just waiting
This is my first memory:A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky wood floorA line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the centerHeavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply too short For me to sit in and readSo my first book was always bigIn the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presidedTo the left side the card catalogueOn the right newspapers draped over what looked like a quilt rackMagazines face out from the wallThe welcoming smile of my librarianThe anticipation in my heartAll those books—another world—just waitingAt my fingertips.
My First Memory (of Librarians), Nikki Giovanni
Our hierarchies
… our spatial and temporal arrangements, our hierarchies of value and distributions of wealth—our forms. (Caroline Levine)
120824
Romare Bearden, Untitled, 1980s(?). DC Moore Gallery.
Thomas Allen, Ronchini.
Teresa Gierzynska, Gunia Nowik Gallery.
AG2021_2030239aa or we take what we can
For Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and her Malik, our Phife
& I immediately think of Cheryl, her Malik, his beloved
obsession with the team’s orange & blue, a sunset sky over
this city. The ruckus of these players’ sweet grit, the desire they
have to come in first. They rebound & strip like stickup
kids. They pound the paint as if their feet were wrapped in
Timbs, their lean torsos tattered & tapered in Coogi sweaters.
This is New York. Bodega filled with the aroma of a good
chopped cheese. Ambitions racing through our minds fast as
the 2 train during rush hour. I watch the reverie on TV, as
the Garden thrashes & quakes by the tectonic plate of our
steadfast fandom. Don’t get it twisted, capitalism is dying
& yet here I am rooting for boys bred to burn out their bodies
to make billionaires more billions. Was this what Rome felt like
toward the end? When the colosseums filled with gladiators
stirred the masses into a frenzy. How the people hungered for
food & freedom, but instead lost themselves in the carnal play
of sacrifice—reliable warriors, safer to believe in than
Caesar. No matter, I think Phife would’ve loved this team,
unflappable & carefree, anti-establishment, uncompromising.
What happens to the heart of a city when its people survive
on air; that space between the flick of the wrist & the swish
of a three-point buzzer beater? We fight for a win to fill
the ache of losing: Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Ayiti. We take
what we can, celebrate small victories until we win everything
we thought we never could—
As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game, Yesenia Montilla
120624 or everything they say
Everything they say and write is a lie,
about law and freedom, about equality
and justice, in the rubble of the bombs
we make and sell, in the silent cries
of limbless orphans, in the night
lit by white phosphorous and the
relentless sound of buzzing drones.
My Apologies, Ammiel Alcalay