September 02, 2010
Vitrine
A rotation after the jump:
Painting
Tan Lejos
#361
2010
63”x50” , 160x127cm
Painting
To Be Like It Once Was
#360
2010
63”x50” , 160x127cm
Painting
Some Hidden Grace
#359
2010
63”x50” , 160x127cm
August 29, 2010
Monadology
I've been listening to the podcast The Partially Examined Life in the studio (this is one podcast among others that I listen to while painting, I'll report on them all in a subsequent podcast) with much satisfaction. I ike the banter, the rim shots, the chemistry between the characters there, the Jack Black-like musician (Mark Linsenmayer ), the sad one with calm voice who usually guides the rudder of the conversation back into the topic (Seth Paskin?), the avuncular and wry Wes Alwan. What's cool is that the internet has shown a spotlight on the life of mind of other communities of philosophy, you don't have to get tenure to live the properly examined life.
At the beginning of my volumetric painting production (1996-onward), I had named the spiny hemispheres in my work Monads, after Leibniz's atomic entities. I had only a sketchy idea of what they were at the time and the more I learn about his ideas, the more confirmed I feel in my intuitive assignation. If you too want to confirm my intuition, check out The Partially Examined Life's Episode Six: Leibniz’s Monadology: What Is There?. Good stuff.
Also, don't miss the Arthur Danto podcast, super, super interesting.
Disasters of War
Sometimes when the thought arises that perhaps my attachment to Goya might be an artifact of sentimentality (I was marked by a visit to the Prado when I was thirteen, they had an exhibition of the Caprichos at the time and I was possessed by his Saturn, Devouring his Children), I check myself. Then I come across something like Blog de Narco while scanning the news and I realize with a mix of sadness and grim registration that this theme will never expire from human experience. (Especially this link, click with caution.) How does that Platonic ditty go? "Only the dead will see the end of war." How is it that the best among us, such as Francis Fukuyama, could ever dream that we are standing on the doorstep of utopia with his "End of History and the Last Man" thesis? Perhaps we can only ever stand at the threshold, incapable of entering. It's time to play Joni Mitchell's Woodstock with a splash of bitter irony and a couple of cubes of ice.
