Friday, April 28, 2006

Phonecam Photoessay #1

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I visited the Whitney Biennial for free, because I'm talking with people there about working on a commission.

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A piece of outsider art in the bathroom stalls at the Whitney. I like the self-effacing quality of this graffiti--as though the Biennial has forced their hand, and now they have to "mark" and "own" the negative space of the bathroom stall. (That would be my crit theory essay.)

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A film projection of someone re-enacting Charlie Chaplin's speech from "The Great Dictator" in sign language, looped. Now it looks like a portal to heaven, or perhaps just a white glob.

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Robin des Bois on Smith Street, shortly before I hurt myself on an errant olive pit in the middle of an intense emotional conversation with my wife.

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Poster for JB on Broadway, from the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center where I'm doing research on Barnum and Brecht. I was in JB in 1992. I played the voice of God, and every time I performed it, I was naked "for dramatic effect and resonance." I was young.

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This is the worst logo I have ever actually seen designed. JM spotted it in our neighborhood—it's theoretically to protest police brutality to medical marijuana users, but I think it's my eyes that have been punished.

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My friend Lawrence, seen again after too-long absence. His lovely wife Larissa is in the window. He is recounting how there is a colony in France that writers and artists can go to, but that it will be broiling hot and that the dogs attack the artists in the streets. I do not think we will be going to this colony.
5:30 PM