Untitled 12/26/10

SHE:
Who even is
this guy (after all, nobody
wanted to
find him) given
the circumstances
under which
you were:
looking for the
best
kind of
man.

HE:
You were molten
(shortly before
hardening). You
silently descended,
a mild quickening,
then we set as
a shrill stone.

On Photorealism

Upon perusing an online gallery of art from photorealist Pedro Campos, I noticed that a minor flame war had broken out in the comments section over the aesthetic merit of photorealism. As I scrolled, two camps quickly distinguished themselves. One of these claimed that photorealism was boring, lacking both the insight and creative energy that distinguished the modern era's aesthetic giants. The other lauded Campos' technical prowess and bemoaned a status quo in art that traded virtuosity for an elitist genre of chromatic drivel which would fail to impress most ten-year olds.

Indeed, the near-perfect emulation of a photograph seems no easy feat, particularly to those of us who struggle to straighten lines and have no hope depicting cherries distinguishable from bumblebees. But it is also true that simple mimicry of our environment to that level of detail for its own sake would be redundant and boring, in terms of advancing art's capacity to probe our i. e. humanity's and our environment's nature. However, I think there is much more nuance to be explored in the works of Close, Campos, et al than is recognized by either set of critics.

First off, consider a thought experiment in which a famous photographer (say, Annie Liebovitz) advertises an exhibition of her latest work for charity, with a reception to follow. Painstaking care is taken in order to preserve all sense of normalcy during the exhibition. At the opening of the reception, Ms. Liebovitz comes forward, thanks us for attending, and suddenly announces "A-ha! But these aren't really my works! Here we have a set of paintings, rather than photographs, by noted photorealist X!" Of course, we are all offended to have been led astray, but the curious minds among us will return to the paintings at once. With our knowledge that the works themselves are paintings, we examine each and every detail, noting how we were duped into believing that they were photographs.

Just as Monty Hall's knowledge of the contents of the doors on Let's Make a Deal dramatically influences your probability of winning if you choose the opposite door, this knowledge of the fact that photorealist works are paintings is what motivates us to examine them critically. We note that the artist, a human being, has passed a reverse Turing test of sorts with his hands. To me, this is an alarming and inspiring fact about our capacity to create art (certainly an element of our aforementioned nature). Our most computationally powerful machines have yet to definitively surpass our greatest chess masters, and apparently the mechanical production of images via light capture is matched by human wit. This, of course, only serves to further reiterate one of the most pressing questions of the modern digital world: "How different are we than the machines we create?"

Even apart from the genre's highlighting of Ray Kurzweil's wet dream, though, photorealism brings the objectivity problem to light in a dramatic new way. Indeed, the creative process involved in producing photorealist works seems precisely that: emphasizing differences between our mental projections of reality and a possible self-existent reality the way photographs do.

It forces us to reexamine our senses in a way that no other previous art form has. It tells us to consider our capacity to exactly replicate the patterns of light produced by photographs in the context of our nature as human beings. It boldly renews the debate over whether objectivity is possible. And, yeah, yeah, it looks really fucking cool. So don't knock it for not being as chic as Pollock, and don't stop thinking at "really fucking cool."

Why Christmas is Important

Yes, it's stressful to get gifts for people and worry about all the stuff that's associated with the holiday season, but goddammit we should all be required to get off our asses and collectively make everybody feel like somebody cares about them by gratifying their material desires at least once a year.

And then the cold

And then the cold
went straight through me
all my heat radiating
outward as fleeing
pigeons from a loud sound
no thief, just a repulsive
blow at my center
vibrations pushed past
skin and its molecules
outward to escape
from a place just south
of lungs; left from
the subtle explosion,
stale beauty and gold

White Curtain

I.
Seven-halfs of a full turnaround
from seeing that someone was
at her door, my grandmother
fled from her kitchen. Three men
weren't enough to take her
on July eighteenth, nineteen-
eighty-three. Five might
have been, but they would still
have been so surprised by
her attempts towards hospitality
that shock would bid them sit
and stay awhile for a supper
of ham, collard greens,
and banana pudding.

II.
William meets with his herd, daily.
Today is no different. A gray
sky meets modest brush at the
edge of the wood. The fields
don't sing, really, they just
murmur some quiet hymn to the
dung that keeps them green.
Flies swerve to avoid erratic
tails and William's herd feeds.

III.
Quiet congregation, black-suited
Reverend delivers his sermon
on "How to love the Lord."
Closing hymn in red binding:
"Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."
A five-year old, home that
afternoon, considers justice
and does her best to meet
the preacher's suggestion.

Waylaid

Desert, night,
Eleven and I hadn't eaten
since one. Tarantula
a few inches from my shoe.
I wouldn't flinch
for fear of waking him,
should he be asleep.
So many eyes
and a wave motion
to slow appendages.

"I need to ask you a question,
before we start," said a new voice.
Old man, paler than the climate could
bear, ambled up. "No, nothing serious."

"Fine."

"If you're going to leave,
why'd you come all the way
out here before?"

"Had to." "Yeah?"

"Yeah, can't go 'til
you say so anyway. You
gonna write a letter or
something? I don't
think so."

"Fair enough."

So desperate to halt
an ever-changing world,
my father took upon himself
his father, his mother's father,
and changed.

Were I half the
man he was.