During my Memory Replacement – Election Day performance on Union Square.
Memory Replacement was a success.
This is about giving people weapons - little arrows of brushes and sharpies, and oddly enough people use these weapons to express their feelings of belonging and joy of one another. I want to use these tiny weapons to bring the best in people, a moment of joy with an arrow of paint. Where people from all walks of life put there heads together in a brief moment, a second of color.
Where day traders and day schoolers doodle together on the sidewalk.
I miss grandpa everyday and his drawings and paintings fill the house he built, he was an enemy of the communist state, lost all - his business and property to the government, he watched many of his friends get shot from the terrace of his house ( my aunt says he paced the terrace all night smoking cigarettes and watching the muzzle flashes down in the valley i guess wondering about their turn ). Grandpa was saved by a lawyer whose family grandpa used to take care of when said lawyer was in prison, he and my grandma lived for many years with a live-in communist ( don't ask, it was the weirdest arrangement that i can not even properly describe, read up on Kafka ) - it used to be a lot worse ( in the 60s and 70s) with the police coming at midnight to check on people's activities. Grandpa barely escaped with his life and was never allowed to work a proper job, he was told he was lucky to be alive. In the beginning of the communist regime he was in a labor camp building roads and later on only my grandma worked. When my mom sued the government later on in a Strasbourg court I came across papers in the archives, anonymous letters informing on grandpa and calling him "enemy of the state". This is how I know.
but now this whole thing is done, his work lives on, I always say hi and bye to him as if he's around.
I love the subway.. people pay to go to the theater.. i go to the subway.
i have photographed many train stations and realized that i simply love inhabiting transient spaces,.. feel at home and make myself comfortable at bus stations, terminals and various corridors.. even parking lots, especially was fond of Tokyo & Kyoto stations.
trying to not think of packing hoping that the next room over indeed holds a self-packing bag, after having a large hot chocolate and a beer for some reason - I am sneaking in a meaning of life and having a laugh actually..
This Election Day I amgonna feed New Yorkers
milk & cookies and ask them
to draw.. a new memory.
Election Day
Tues Nov 8th noon - midnight 14th Street–Union Square & West 4th Subway Stations Union Square & Washington Square Park and other places underground and above
Memory Replacement - Election Day, I want Milk and Cookies for $1
Memory Replacement - Election Day, I want Milk and Cookies for $5
Memory Replacement - Election Day, I want as much Milk and Cookies as I like
The subway has always been an endless animation, with hands of various sizes coming and going, getting strung firmly for a bit and then letting go. Also the great stories of the subway, sometimes you hear a life's story by the time you get off. Often strange and sometimes with villains in various disguises.
Bernini was an heir of a sculptor and got an early start in the art world of Rome, finding a patron in Cardinal Borghese. But these little mundane details can't and won't tell a story of a brilliance beyond modern commitment to transient pleasures and instant rush. I have long been bewitched by marble and marble has been one of three things i can endlessly stare at. As if i can untangle the marble particles into thought fractals where my own thoughts get lost into an endless voyage.. I like the confident silhouettes of marble.
One of the greatest jolts of marble I ever got was Galleria Borghese with the Rape of Persephone and several other pieces but the former truly took me several hours to part with.
Here is an album of the works of the great artist which I stole of course this being a Saturday morning..
Bernini
To me the subject of bodies has always been a contentious one as I never understood why certain parts are considered to be displayable but others aren't (as displayable). How are hands and butt and breasts different as to make people instantly get emotional? Perhaps it gets to do with rush of hormones due to evolution where the display of a certain part instantly produces a natural urge - that is my thinking.. So to prevent people from losing their minds while going about building cathedrals or fighting - we invented clothes.
The case with art is a bit different, i don't remember a case where i would get improper thoughts in a gallery or a museum looking at expansive square footage of naked bodies ( or God forbid the Vatican where it seems is housed the greatest variety of flesh ).. The case could be made that art elevates these certain hormone inducing parts to a different level of awareness which doesn't result in hormones but rather results in thoughts. I like this about art.
I am gonna look for some of my own photographs of Bernini pieces later in the day but another thought just crossed my mind - there's a plausible reenactment of what hormonally unbridled smart primates can do - i remember watching Planet of the Apes and don't really long to see it again unless i am stuck in line at Walmart.
This is David from the story of David and Goliath:
Although i much prefer the stillness of Michelangelo's David - can't help but think about the twist in evolution that allowed us to develop awareness and consciousness on this tiny rock in the outskirts of a galaxy.. that allows us to have appreciations and reasonings beyond the mundane and have this ability for abstract thought and cognition. Art is extrapolation from the material to very abstract constructs that only exist in our minds. Can't reconcile the fact of how seemingly wobbly and fleshy we are with certain ideas in art and science that are abstract and removed from the obvious.
You know i like the fact i am not a monkey but a part of space faring species. I really like people and things with balls. What i think makes us not monkey is the fact that monkeys just chill and chew which is probably enough even for some people.. but i like to think we can do better, and we do in fact make the world better, we are creators.
This is so crazy and Elon goes so matter of factly about it - it is awesome!
And finally - the U.S. House Armed Services Committee grills SpaceX - it is gold!
If they use the word "certification" one more time - I'll throw my mac at this tree down in the garden. Also, when people say "ho-when" as opposed to "when" - the person is from Ohio, guaranteed.
I used to work for the Army and DoD - and things are usually slow in the Army but then i applied for a job to work as an artist on a base in Alabama, a Colonel called me and said i have to do an art test. And I said okay - sure. He said you have 48 hours starting now and hung up. There went my Army career.
