Philippe Chancel, Arirang Festival at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang (2006).
1. Pico Iyer, if you have ever read much of my work, is one of my favorite writers. At his most ordinary and traditional, his writing is precise, skillfully observed, and always moving. However, when Iyer gets experimental, I find him at his best. This article aims to compare Las Vegas and North Korea and the result is fascinating. At the article's heart, freedom is at issue: Why does a place with no recognizable freedom come to resemble a place where freedom has apparently gone wild? Iyer looks at the paradox and finds no paradox at all:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/aug/13/pyongyang-vegas-empty-cities/
2. From Iyer's piece, I began to think that North Korea might be a good starting point for an exhibition: how would one aim to see that which does not want to been seen, or that which regulates closely how it is seen? Turns out, the underrated gem of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago thought the same and organized just such an exhibition:
https://news.artnet.com/in-brief/life-in-north-korea-photos-columbia-college-chicago-324513?utm_campaign=artnetnews&utm_source=081415daily&utm_medium=email
3. Every writer who has attempted to take on the work of Charles Ray has failed. My apologies to those I know personally, but Ray is weirder and deeper than any article I have ever read about him. I've always wanted to write of Ray and the dilemma is this: Ray's work wants (sometimes even begs) to be placed seamlessly in the canon, it is full of references to historical sculpture, and Ray himself has nothing but great respect for those who came before him. Thus, people are tempted to find Ray fitting into the narrative quite cleanly. However, Ray's sculptures go to work on you and release their intrigues over time. I find that I don't have opinions about Ray's work but instead gather stories about them, each and every one of them becomes a reality that effects my reality going forward. I hope to demonstrate this in long form some beautiful day in the future when time allows, but until then, I leave you with this highly acceptable read from Jason Farago:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/13/charles-ray-sculpture-review-art-institute-chicago
4. I come from a town of a little over 800 people in Texas, a town mostly attracted to country music (which I love), but I cannot remember a single moment in my life when I have not been in love with hip-hop. It came to a head recently when I went to the Laugh Factory on a Sunday and comedian Donnell Rawlings (aka Ashy Larry or Beautiful from the Chappelle Show) heckled me mercilessly by walking on stage to a song I knew well (ain't worried bout nothing by French Montana) and giving and taking the mike from me during the chorus of the song (not giving me a chance to sing it). I was thinking, "Damn it, give me credit, I love this stuff!" Not sure why I tell this story now, other than to introduce this article from the Atlantic about the new movie Straight Outta Compton, which I tend to agree with wholeheartedly. Like the author, I like hip hop that chronicles its time both in spirit and historically, and contemporary hip hop seems to have gotten away from that depth (though I have to say I like contemporary hip hop as well but probably akin to the way that I like sugar).
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/straight-outta-compton-nwa/401279/?utm_source=SFFB
5. Afforded any opportunity, I read Edward Mendelson. He will take a book you've read ten times and show you something you never seen: he will take a totem of literature and do the necessary work of reminding you and the world of why they should or should not have that status. Here, Mendelson takes on the early letters of Hemingway. I am not sure if I am proud or not to report that I am centering in on having read the complete canon (both his writings and biographies) of Hemingway. It is a buffet over which I have lingered too long, and Mendelson, better than anyone else, perhaps explains my indigestion.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/aug/14/who-was-ernest-hemingway/
Video of the Week:
6. Double Conscious by Kahil Joseph closed this weekend at MOCA. I saw the video, set the music of Kendrick Lamar, 6 times, so many times that I wanted to write a long piece about it (alas). Anyway, I wanted to at least mention this video that made going to MOCA so moving for the past several months. The link takes you to another video by Joseph, which gives a sense of his visual style. However, if you can find Double Conscious, it is very much worth your time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_TDA5AMyVA
Poem for the Week:
7. North Korea naturally made me think of the poets of repressive regimes, often poets of exile far from the home that they knew. Osip Mandelstam was one such poet, recently introduced to me by the work of Enrique Martinez Celaya. The link takes you to Mandelstam's great offense: the poem that got him tortured, imprisoned, and exiled by Stalin from 1933 to 1937. The poem is clear and powerful, not couched in poetic language but obvious that Mandelstam wanted Stalin himself to recognize each and every feature of the poem:
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/politics/portrait-dictator
One Click Deeper:
8. It is a worthy exercise to now show you a poem by Mandelstam from the end of his exile (either slightly before his release or slightly after). The link jumps to a poem that would appear to be a simple pastoral poem of loneliness and despair, if not for the history that Mandelstam lived. I admit I thought of Wallace Stevens's Snowman and whether or not Stevens's despair in that poem is perhaps, in and of itself, a function of our American leisure or maybe the low status of poetry in our society. Unlike Stevens's nature, which mocks our philosophy by showing it to be but worn lightly or not at all by the environment we find ourselves in, Mandelstam's nature seems ready to receive the failure of our attempted existence, a failure in which figures like Stalin are decided protagonists:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/185227