Lots and lots of neat

Artistic BFF's: Evan Holloway + Emily Wilson

"Gray Scale," by Evan Holloway. 2000. Tree branches, paint, metal.

"Gray Scale," by Evan Holloway
+ The Keep, by Emily Wilson

What they have in common: trees. Microscopic attention to trees, actually. Open Wilson's The Keep, and you'll find entire catalogues of trees, in winter, approaching winter, living beside a river, collecting sky. There is not one action, one molecule of tree that escapes Wilson's notice. Imagine if Wilson and Holloway would have collaborated on "Gray Scale," how flush the gallery placque describing the art. Where it's from. How it might otherwise respond to the controlled environment of the art world. 

The definition of articulation: is in every gesture of every line and bend and definition of "ontogeny." And to me the idea of painting these tree branches gray is an act of slow loving. Quiet loving. Where the loving is this natural world that inhabits the veins. And if you wonder what that kind of loving sounds like, I suggest Wilson's poetry. 

Artistic BFF's: Phyllida Barlow + Srikanth Reddy

from RIG installation, by Phyllida Barlow. 2011. Various materials.

from RIG, by Phyllida Barlow
+ Voyager, by Srikanth Reddy

What they have in common: Facts are heavy things. And they often stand with each other in a solidarity that could be mistaken for obliviousness and complicity at the same time. Because reality is always working that way. Or, rather, reality works very hard to make it feel that way. Note the plodding procession of figures in Barlow. Mark the relentless knowledge standing behind Kurt Waldheim's life, and how it will not relinquish the stage just because Reddy erased it from Waldheim's life.  

How does art defy the law of physics? No, it's not magic. Or rather, magic is a cheapskate's art. Barlow and Reddy have at their disposal the irony of methodicalism. Which might be the exact opposite of what anyone would attribute to Barlow. But imagine standing beneath those giant blocks, each individually clothed, and herded the way you'd herd cattle so that they'll all walk in the same direction. This is what you do to make great art out of concrete. Herd, and take care that there is no stampede. I suppose not every law of physics need be defied. Maybe carefully needled would be more appropriate. Now imagine the life of Kurt Waldheim. Because it's all very similar, as Reddy has made exceedingly clear. 

Artistic BFF's: Yayoi Kusama + Heather Christle

"Accumulation," by Yayoi Kusama. 1963. Sewn and stuffed fabric, wood chair frame, paint.

 "Accumulation," by Yayoi Kusama
+ What Is Amazing, by Heather Christle

What they have in common: World + even better world + whole worlds of microbes that are actually living inside the artists' brains and promising that there will be even better worlds that will soon come to pass. That's why they can make this art and these poems that are bursting with optimism and "creative spirit" (in the non-microbe-infected layman's terms) and loving lovingkindness. You will be singing when you read Christle's poems. They're too irresistible. You will wish there were colonies where you could live like one of the microbes, to get just a fraction of the artistic experience. WARNING: Prepare for lights. Bright lights. All of the lights!

How an artist born in 1929, whose art here is easily a decade older than the poet, can still have so many affinities with the poet: Destiny. If you need any further evidence that a God can at the very least have some beneficent tendencies, please consult the combining of these two artistic visions. 

Artistic BFF's: Farhad Moshiri + Matthea Harvey

"Life is Beautiful," by Farhad Moshiri. 2009. Knives.

Detail of "Life is Beautiful." They're knives!

"Life is Beautiful," by Farhad Moshiri
+ Modern Life, by Matthea Harvey

What they have in common: Um, ticklish delight? At least when you first meet them, they're both so pretty. So elegant. How else would you describe Moshiri's cursive? And on the first pages of Harvey, she's so optimistic about finding the right end to her stories. Isn't it always easier to like someone who's so keen on making a good first impression? I like ham flowers, too, Matthea Harvey. And centaurs. And dotted lines.

Why does everything have to bite back? Maybe you should be asking, "Why wouldn't it?" Because I don't care what suburban, Fox News "capitalist" version of the future you're subscribing to, the system is always against you. That might be one of the things that makes life so much fun. All that is regular and ordered is probably operating under a dubious design. Clean and fresh Google collecting all my information. Moshiri's pointilism with found knives. Or Harvey's abecedarian poems about the post-Apocalypse.

Artistic BFF's: Bharti Kher + Anne Carson

"Choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, sanguine," by Bharti Kher. 2009-10. Bronze.

"Choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, sanguine," by Bharti Kher 
+ Glass, Irony and God, by Anne Carson

What they have in common: I hope you can see it. Because I think the two have so much in common. All of these multiple women voices, like in Carson's essay "The Gender of Sound." For Kher, the women are bronze and cordoned off, yet all of them stand there multiples of each other. Uniquely feminine. The sculpture even has a backside, where there is a woman being held, like she were fallen, like she were Christ in the Pieta. But she doesn't get to be cradled. She's just held, like a piece of meat, away from the body.

Why they would keep talking on the phone for hours: Because they both have such a concrete grasp on paradox. Carson's "The Glass Essay" is all about freedom, or the cage we think we'll get free of and then finally taste freedom. And Kher's "Choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy, sanguine" has way too many arms to not be conversant with paradox. Serpent arms and arms with hands halfway formed.