 |
| Joel Sternfeld Mother and Son at Resort, Kauai, Hawaii 1988 C-print Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Mark Wethli Crossing 1988 oil on canvas Portland Museum of Art, Maine |
 |
| Alan Stones Portsmouth 1988 oil on canvas Portsmouth Museums, Hampshire |
 |
| Wayne Thiebaud Lipsticks 1988 hand-colored etching Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento |
 |
| Manuel Neri Escalieta no. 5 1988 painted marble statue San Diego Museum of Art |
 |
| John Newman Torus Orbicularis 1988 aluminum Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas |
 |
| Lari Pittman The Senseless Cycle, Tender and Benign, brings Great Comfort 1988 acrylic and spray-laquer on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Robert Rauschenberg Soviet-American Array IV 1988 intaglio photogravure Seattle Art Museum |
 |
| Paula Rego The Dance 1988 acrylic on paper, mounted on canvas Tate Gallery, London |
 |
| Gonzalo Ribera Altar 1988 screenprint Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas |
 |
| Leonard Rosoman The Painter Richard Eurich in his Studio 1988 acrylic on canvas Bradford Museums and Galleries, West Yorkshire |
 |
| Harry Stanbridge Through the Foam 1988 screenprint Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia |
-Art-Institute-of-Chicago.jpg) |
| Arthur Mones Richard Serra standing beside Tilted Arc in Manhattan 1988 gelatin silver print (the work was demolished the following year, enraging the artist) Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Sabina Ott Material Fictions #3 1988 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
 |
| Marilene Phipps Green Rocks - Emergence 1988 oil on canvas Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine |
 |
| Valentino (Milan) Blouse 1988 printed linen with applied sequins Texas Fashion Collection, Denton |
Under Sirius
Yes, these are the dog-days, Fortunatus:
The heather lies limp and dead
On the mountain, the baltering torrent
Shrunk to a soodling thread;
Rusty the spears of the legion, unshaven its captain,
Vacant the scholar's brain
Under his great hat,
Drug though She may, the Sybil utters
A gush of table-chat.
And you yourself with a head-cold and upset stomach,
Lying in bed till noon,
Your bills unpaid, your much advertised
Epic not yet begun
Are a sufferer too. All day, you tell us, you wish
Some earthquake would astonish,
Or the wind of the Comforter's wing
Unlock the prisons and translate
The slipshod gathering.
And last night, you say, you dreamed of that bright blue morning,
The hawthorn hedges in bloom,
When, serene in their ivory vessels,
The three wise Maries come,
Sossing through seamless waters, piloted in
By sea-horse and fluent dolphin:
Ah! how the cannons roar,
Ah! how the cannons roar,
How jocular the bells as They
Indulge the peccant shore.
It is natural to hope and pious, of course, to believe
That all in the end shall be well,
But first of all, remember,
So the Sacred Books foretell,
The rotten fruit shall be shaken. Would your hope make sense
If today were that moment of silence,
Before it break and drown,
When the insurrected eagre hangs
Over the sleeping town?
How will you look and what will you do when the basalt
Tombs of the sorcerers shatter
And their guardian megalopods
Come after you pitter-patter?
How will you answer when from their qualming spring
The immortal nymphs fly shrieking,
And out of the open sky
The pantocratic riddle breaks: –
"Who are you and why?"
For when in a carol under the apple-trees
The reborn featly dance,
There will also, Fortunatus,
Be those who refused their chance,
Now pottering shades, querulous beside the salt-pits,
And mawkish in their wits,
To whom these dull dog-days
Between events seem crowned with olive
And golden with self-praise.
– W.H. Auden (1949)