I am baffled by the sky.
Almost everything I write these days is either a question or a condemnation, a criticism. I’d much rather have it that everything I write be either praise or a question. From now on I’ll seek the praise inherent in the question, I’ll suck all that I can out of it, the question that is, like it’s nectar or some kind of local honey.
Consider the strength of self-sufficiency, of not needing more than I have, of actually realizing I have all that I need.Consider humility as a form of action, as well as steadfastness.
The sea is less baffling to me than the sky, but no less worthy of exploration. Would I rather go to the moon or to the bottom of the sea? I’d rather sink than soar, for some reason I think there’s more information in sinking but I could be wrong. I can imagine a treasure chest awaiting me as I sink to the ocean floor; soaring, I imagine some sort of combustible occurrence in which I am consumed by every mistake I’ve made, every evil thought I’ve had, each one of my misdeeds.
I can’t remember seeing any human figures in Celmins’ work. There was the sea and the sky like I’d never seen them before, and a giant comb, rubber erasers, fighter jets, an electric floor heater, a series of spider webs exquisitely rendered…
…I too am at the place where almost everything interests me except other people.
After walking through the galleries of Celmins’ show at SFMOMA the cumulative effect causes me to begin conceiving of a time when there’s nothing left on earth to report, when all information is exhausted and the artist is the only one who remains, the only one with the memory large enough to record what we had here once, the only one who can regenerate it in as human a way as possible.