What caught my attention…

Letters from an American, October 10, 2022

… Russia is loosing the Ukraine war… badly…

According to Deborah Haynes, a security and defense editor at _Sky News_ in the United Kingdom, Sir Jeremy Fleming, who is the director of the U.K.’s intelligence and security agency, will say in a speech tomorrow that the Ukrainian forces are “turning the tide” against Russia. “The costs to Russia…in people and equipment are staggering. We know—and Russian commanders on the ground know—that their supplies and munitions are running out…. Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilisation of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.”

… two things to consider…

… what will happen to the House and Senate in November is a question and Putin is surely waiting to see, probably also planning to try to put his finger on the scales…

… and…

… what is the end game?… what is Russia’s off ramp short of nuclear war?… it may be clear to intelligence officials but it certainly isn’t clear to me…

Tschabalala Self’s Poetic New Paintings Explore the Meaning of Home

… i love this painting…

Red Room, 2022

With this playful, poetic simplicity, Self explores a plethora of social implications. What does a home symbolise? What is the role of the home in our collective consciousness? What does it mean to take a seat at the table, or to bring the domestic setting into the public sphere? “The home has two realities,” says Self. “An aspirational reality – a place of comfort, interiority and true self-expression. Then in reality it’s a place full of expectations, where people have to take on roles.”

20 new books to get you through the week.

… i stop on this one… initially i was going to blow by it because the thought of 20 books i should read in this week was ridiculously impossible… but then i stopped… because the idea was ridiculously impossible… i have so many books to read and i am not at all making progress on reading them…

On Affirmative Action, Clarence Thomas Took a Page From Malcolm X

… i looked at the headline and photograph of Justice Thomas for this article… thought about clicking on it… scrolled by… clicked… read a little… scrolled some more… returned… read the full article… the author is white… hmmm… white man explaining black man… in a favorable way in this case… still… can he be trusted?… i don’t know… at any rate… affirmative-action vs. meritocracy… well, we all know racism isn’t dead and that it informs admissions decisions and hiring practices… we all should know that racism is endemic to our culture and has systematically suppressed people of color in all kinds of ways… how do we compensate?… if not affirmative action, what other mechanism?… i understand the argument that it stigmatizes the success of an individual for it to be thought that there but for the grace of affirmative action go they… the implication being who ever they were did not deserve the success… they didn’t merit it but for the color of their skin… how do we train institutions and corporations to be color blind?… i understand the arguments against affirmative action… but… what is the better solution?… then there is the whole thing about Justice Thomas himself… even if you explain to me that he comes by his views on AA honestly, through Malcom X, how am i to overlook the anger i have with this man and his wife Ginny and the whole Roe v. Wade thing?… and the threat to undo gay marriage, the right to birth control, etc. etc. etc.?… is this a man i can look up to?… can i entertain the thought that he might be right on AA?…

Pop Goes the Weasel?

… Nick Catoggio, writing for The Dispatch, ponders the question of Putin deploying nukes… will he or won’t he… there is no rational basis to… Russia will loose far more than it will gain… the question is… will this reach the point of being an existential threat to Putin in which he and his fellow countrymen who agree with him decide that if they can’t have empire the world can’t have life… or will someone in Russia take him out?… and if they did, would the world be safe in the chaos that followed?… so… it remains a question of the end game… how do we get to checkmate and the toppling of the king without Armageddon?…

The Inevitable Indictment of Donald Trump

… as bad as i know it will be if 45 is indicted, i simply can’t imaging having any faith in the system if he isn’t… sadly, a large part of the country will have their loss of faith confirmed if he is… according to the article, we should know by next spring… fasten your seatbelts…

There’s a date on the calendar when excessive meticulousness potentially precludes holding Trump to account. On January 20, 2025, Merrick Garland might not have a job. His post could be occupied by an avatar of the hard right. And any plausible Republican president will drop the case against Donald Trump on their first day in office.

The excruciating conundrum that Garland faces is also a liberating one. He can’t win politically. He will either antagonize the right or disappoint the left. Whatever he decides, he will become deeply unpopular. He will unavoidably damage the reputation of the institution he loves so dearly with a significant portion of the populace.

Faced with so unpalatable a choice, he doesn’t really have one. Because he can’t avoid tearing America further apart, he’ll decide based on the evidence—and on whether that evidence can persuade a jury. As someone who has an almost metaphysical belief in the rule book, he can allow himself to apply his canonical texts.

Jack Davidson’s Alchemical Photographic Etchings

“I’ve never been a darkroom kid,” says British photographer Jack Davison. “I tried, [but] it just didn’t appeal to me.” With a new solo exhibition, Photographic Etchings, opening in north London’s Cob Gallery, Davison is instead reflecting on the tactile wonders and alchemical magic of photogravure, a labour-intensive, high-cost alternative to the darkroom that lies at the heart of this exhibition.

Jack Davison, Untitled (JD-08), 2022© the artist, courtesy of Cob Gallery

… what is it about snarling or perhaps just snapping or perhaps just skulking in a menacing way?… and depicted in a shadowy, high contrast way… see Daido Moriyama’s stray dog…

Somaya Critchlow, the Artist Reconfiguring the Black Female Nude

12 of Critchlow’s new paintings and drawings are now on display at Maximillian William gallery in London, in an exhibition called Afternoon’s Darkness. A sense of the macabre lingers across these new works, in which Black women are depicted revelling in their solitude – nude, semi-nude or in costume – backdropped by dimly-lit, domestic interiors.

Count Me Out, 2022© Somaya Critchlow. Image courtesy the artist and Maximillian William, London. Photography: Prudence Cuming Associates.

… increasingly, women artists are portraying women in ways that do invite the male gaze… the male gaze is such a convoluted gaze… is it appropriate or not in this “hashtag me too” era?… at the end of the day, we feel what we feel when we look at images of beautiful women partially or fully undressed… it’s what we do with those feelings that matters… do we treat such images as gateway invitations to the abuse of womanhood or do we simply appreciate the beauty of the female body?… have we matured as a culture?… patriarchy is alive and well… there are risks to trying to break through to a new attitude…

Henry Miller on Friendship and the Relationship Between Creativity and Community

This vital relationship between creativity and connection has been tensed and twisted in the era of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, where self-marketing so readily masquerades as “friend”-ship.

… i have all but abandoned FB and Instagram, using the former to check in with “friends” now and again and the latter to post an image here and there… i never did have much use of twitter… these days i can be found on Vero (@smbk) and Micro.blog (@mbkriegh)…

“Usually the artist has two life-long companions, neither of his own choosing… — poverty and loneliness. To have a friend who understands and appreciates your work, one who never lets you down but who becomes more devoted, more reverent, as the years go by, that is a rare experience. It takes only one friend… to work miracles.” Henry Miller

Disgruntled American Tourist Smashes Roman Busts at the Vatican

An American man visiting the Vatican threw two Ancient Roman busts to the ground in a fit of rage after being informed that he could not see the Pope, Italian newspapers report.

… ok, the headline, “Disgruntled American”?… click bait really… when i first read it, it seemed unfortunately natural to think of any American as being an angry child…

The man who vandalized the sculptures, aged 65 and apparently “psychologically distressed,” seemed to have been visiting the Vatican alone and was turned over to Italian authorities the same day. He received an aggravated property damage charge and was subsequently released.

… and then i read the bit about “psychologically distressed” and wondered why not this headline… “Psychologically Distressed Tourist Smashes Roman Busts at the Vatican”?… then we would discover the tourist was American… which fact is more important?… “American” if you think or want people to think all Americans are childish rage-holics, and “psychologically distressed” if we are talking about the general propensity in humanity for there to be people not in their right mind…

Find My Friends… an app that tells you where your friends are at any given moment in time?… beyond the obvious serendipitous being in close by places at the same time… meet up!… there are the also obvious ways this might not be a good idea…

I feel so unispired. Inspiration. Can I have some of yours?

… my wife is a huge fan of David Bowie, me, not so much, but i love Nick Cave!… and i love his Red Hand Files in which he answers questions sent to him by his fans… that he seems to have his head on really straight helps too…

In my experience, inspiration is not something that finds you, or offers itself to you, nor for that matter is faith. Inspiration and faith are similar in so far as they both ask something of us. They each require real and constant practical application. For me, inspiration comes only when I practice certain things regularly and rigorously. I must commit fully to the task in hand, sit down each day, pick up my pencil (actually it is a medium black or blue Bic Biro) and get to work. It is not exactly toiling down the coal mines, but it is labour enough, and I undertake it through the good times and the bad, through the dry periods and the periods of abundance, and I keep on going regardless of my successes or failures. Inspiration comes because I put in the work.

Blue Rev, Alvvays

The Toronto band’s third album is a triumph of power pop, a densely layered, witty, blithe, and beautiful record that sets a new benchmark for the genre.

Robe verte, 1967, by Domenico Gnoli

… love this painting… it reminds me of photographs i might make… not sure it has anything particularly important to say about the world other than, perhaps, “god is in the details¹”… what beautiful details they are… Gnoli created between 1949 and 1969 and was an illustrator and set designer… yes, the work above smacks of illustration, but i find it soothing and perhaps significance for its observation of cultural accoutrements… it is pleasing to look at work…

… on display at the Fondazione Prada…

… i free associate to “the devil is in the details,” and then to, “The Devil Wears Prada,” a 2006 romantic comedy/drama starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Adrian Grenier…

Tschabalala Self

Tschabalala Self, “Love to Saarjtie” (2015)

… yesterday i posted about Vanessa Beecroft and two local-to-me artists, Debbie Masters and Judy Sigunick…

… today, Tschabalala Self comes to my attention as painting in a related primitive vein, with the subject matter being woman… i find [the sexual frankness of some of this work](https://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Tschabalala-Self_Rainbow-Bronze-1_2021_70x48x22in.jpg “Tschabalala Self, “Rainbow Bronze I” (2021)") interesting in that women are addressing their genitals openly and frankly which is new to me… a new trend or have i not looked at enough contemporary art beyond photography?…¹

… i am also finding it interesting that i am frequently seeing work by woman rendered in a Venus-Earth-Mother-Goddess way… is this a sign that the matriarchal spirit is trying to reclaim it’s place…

… these are just reactions… much more study needed to accurately identify a trend and the meaning of it as well as discuss the ins and outs of the representation of women in art…

Vanessa Beecroft, Artist

Vanessa Beecroft, Untitled, 2018, Photography by Joshua White

… despite this article opening with a rather sexually explicit painting (alright, because of it, sex sells god damn it!) i am compelled to have a look at the work and what i see i like a lot… i am reminded of Matisse and a couple of local artists i know, Debbie Masters and Judy Sigunick…

Ghosts 2, Debbie Masters

Noble Elephant, Judy Sigunick

… worth having a look…

… an article on Jasper Johns draws me in and i read it from beginning to end… drawn in because the paintings speak to me…

Jasper Johns, Green Angel, 1985

… the article solves the mystery of origin…

The page in question from Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (screenshot by the author)

… fascinating… find out more about Torse de la Cenauresse et Minotaure, Auguste RODIN…

… this painting drew me in…

Malak Matar, “When peace dies, embrace it. It will live again.” (2019)

At age 21, Malak Matar, a Gaza-born artist, has survived three wars and untold trauma. She also recently lived through the 11-day Israeli assault on her city that killed over 240 civilians, including dozens of children. A fragile ceasefire was signed on May 20 between Israel and Hamas, which rules the besieged Gaza Strip. But suffering in Gaza, one of the most impoverished cities in the world, hasn’t ceased. The grief and loss continue with entire families slain; over 70,000 people displaced; widescale damage to property; and continued misery under Israel’s ongoing blockade.¹

… her paintings are hopeful, remind me of the primitivism of Picasso, Gaugin…

… her Etsy store…

… an article on David Hockney, as i look through images of his paintings, it occurs to me that his paintings and the work of photographers who stage their photography, Gregory Crewdson comes to mind here, have much in common… in fact, Hockney’s style strikes me as very much zoom driven photographic… here is a Crewdson image from Beneath the Roses:

… what do you think?