 |
| Robert Motherwell Samurai 1971 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Jean Arp (designer) Ramure (Branches or Antlers) 1950s cotton and wool tapestry woven at Atelier Tabard, Aubusson, France Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Jean Arp Configuration 1952 oil on wood Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Charles Sheeler Western Industrial 1955 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Henry Moore Working Model for UNESCO Reclining Figure 1957 bronze Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Henry Moore Three Standing Figures 1951 drawing (graphite and pastel) Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| William Kentridge Drawing from Zeno Writing 2002 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
from Dialogue On the Dream of the Celestial Ladder
And was there air?
There was no air. Rather, there was an infinite vastness filled with the totality of history – the sum of all events which one sensed, held there in the glittering ether – alongside the brilliance of the stars and their seeming weightlessness. And one was not observed – one was part of the movement.
Did one hear?
No, or rather, one didn't hear with one's ears, but with one's being. To hear by being alongside, to hear the weight of things and to be a thing among them.
And was there time?
No, there was no time, although actions were taken in order, and as the Philosopher says, an action necessitates time. But while there were actions, there was no end to them, for the going up was an eternity. And there, emptied of time, I left behind my impatience, the sword with which I daily carved my own flesh. I left behind my vanity – which flowers among life in time – vanquished by the recognition of my own unworthiness. I left behind my jealousy as I understood from that height that misfortune is showered equally upon all.
And did you fear?
I confess, I shed not my fear. For to have lived once on earth – with its ageless and intimate terrors – is to have it still.
– Ellen Hinsey, from The White Fire of Time (Wesleyan University Press, 2002)
 |
| Pablo Picasso Portrait of Sylvette David 1954 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Pablo Picasso Man holding a Sheep, Flutist, and Heads 1967 drawing (crayon and colored pencil) Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Jacques Lipchitz The Bull and the Condor 1962 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Jasper Johns Alphabet 1959 oil on paper, mounted on board Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Jasper Johns Figure 4 1959 encaustic and newspaper on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
America
Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison
Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes
Where you can't tell the show from the commercials,
And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,
He says that even when he's driving to the mall in his Isuzu
Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels
Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds
Of the thick satin quilt of America
And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,
And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,
It was not blood but money
That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills
Spilling from his wounds, and – this is the weird part –,
He gasped "Thank god – those Ben Franklins were
Clogging up my heart –
And so I perish happily,
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty" –
Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad
Would never speak in rhymed couplets,
And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, "I am asleep in America too,
And I don't know how to wake myself either,"
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:
"I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future."
But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be
When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river
Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters
And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?
– Tony Hoagland (1953-2018), from What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press, 2003)
 |
| Saul Steinberg Untitled (Table Still Life with Envelopes) 1975 printed paper collage, rubber stamps, crayon, colored pencils Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Betty Woodman The Ming Sisters 2004 color woodcut with added stencil-work Art Institute of Chicago |