Sat down and went through two Alfredo Jaar books more seriously: It Is Difficult and Let There be Light. A lot of the work is old now and I don't know enough about the "Art World" to get a sense of what feels old now but might not have in the mid80s, 90s.
I liked best the stuff that deals with how image gets used in the world (rather than his own work with image). For instance, the piece where he puts the history of Rwanda beside covers from major magazines which then culminates eventually in a cover on Rwanda months later. I like how the piece tricks you b/c you think Rwanda will never show up on the cover. And then finally there it is.
Also liked the final piece in It is Difficult where the images are missing from the lightboxes that he installed at the bus stop.
And I liked the lightboxes that he did that just had the word "Rwanda" in them.
I couldn't decide what I thought about his images. They were on the one hand assaultive. Which I liked. And yet it feels like they move so quickly into cliche. It is hard to tell them as all that different from the Newsweek images finally. And while all the lightboxes were disrupting the cliche by cutting up or modifying the image or requiring it being viewed through an apparatus which should be an alienation technique, I wasn't sure they were doing more than disrupting it, not sure they were really moving the images and their romantic persuasions someplace else. The images were so person based. So much the romantic worker, the romantic human caught in the machine. But not really all the stuff around them--not so much the documentation of the machine. Not much about complicity. So the gold miners, not the rich white woman in the US wearing the gold necklace (or the urban black rapper wearing the gold necklace).
April 28, 2005
April 26, 2005
Lately...
Mark McMorris, The Cafe at Light.
Rebecca Brown, Woman in Ill Fitting Wig
Indira Viswanathan Peterson, "Peasants, Nomadic Hillwomen and Birdcatchers: Landscape and Environmental Dialogues in Early Modern South Indian Literature" (a pdf that I downloaded from the Berkeley Environmental Politics Colloquium; although I've never been to one of their talks I often read the papers).
Mark McMorris, The Cafe at Light.
Rebecca Brown, Woman in Ill Fitting Wig
Indira Viswanathan Peterson, "Peasants, Nomadic Hillwomen and Birdcatchers: Landscape and Environmental Dialogues in Early Modern South Indian Literature" (a pdf that I downloaded from the Berkeley Environmental Politics Colloquium; although I've never been to one of their talks I often read the papers).
April 14, 2005
I kept thinking maybe I'm not so behind on this book a week project. But I think I am finally. Has it been 4 weeks? 5 weeks? I think I've got maybe 4 or 5 books read. Depends on what "counts."
Too much travelling lately. And thus too much reading of magazines. I know all about Bruce Willis's acceptance of Ashton Kutcher as Demi Moore's lover.
I'm trying to remember even what I've read lately.
Didn't read much at Desert Hot Springs because Jena and I talked business the entire time. And then on the plane trip home, since her plane was delayed, we went and bought Cosmo and People and sat in airport and compulsively read them.
I couldn't remember what I read on the plane to Sweden but I did remember reading. Went through my stack of books and remembered I read Abdelkebir Khatibi's Love in Two Languages and its vague language had been pleasant but obviously not resonant.
On plane back from Sweden I read Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis.
And also started the Empty Ocean. Still plan to finish the ocean book and eat no more fish ever again.
On plane to Vancouver I think I went over the AWP program. And then I typeset Murray Bookchin's The Ecology of Freedom for AKPress while there and on way home. Does that count as reading?
On plane to and from Maine I typeset some more.
As a result of typesetting screwed up my neck.
In between trips, I did make it through Dee Dee Ramone's Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones. Ok. Fairly quick read but very little big picture.
And also Paul D Miller's Rhythm Science. Which is either great or a series of cliches about dj culture from the early 90s in a new font. Felt like an essay sold as a book. And an essay that had already been written.
Then had to go back and reread Abu-Lughod's Veils of Sentiment quickly once I got back for my class.
I'm on the last few pages of Fred Moten's In the Break which I adore. More on that once I finish it.
Also have been reading around in the new LRSN, The Thorn and the new Jennifer Moxley, Often Capitol but I'm trying not to write much about poetry reading here.
Somewhat exhausted thus. And thinking I've not been reading enough and yet really just wanting to watch some television but not being able to figure out what to watch even. Especially since the television, which is more a monitor, does not change channels really easily.
Too much travelling lately. And thus too much reading of magazines. I know all about Bruce Willis's acceptance of Ashton Kutcher as Demi Moore's lover.
I'm trying to remember even what I've read lately.
Didn't read much at Desert Hot Springs because Jena and I talked business the entire time. And then on the plane trip home, since her plane was delayed, we went and bought Cosmo and People and sat in airport and compulsively read them.
I couldn't remember what I read on the plane to Sweden but I did remember reading. Went through my stack of books and remembered I read Abdelkebir Khatibi's Love in Two Languages and its vague language had been pleasant but obviously not resonant.
On plane back from Sweden I read Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis.
And also started the Empty Ocean. Still plan to finish the ocean book and eat no more fish ever again.
On plane to Vancouver I think I went over the AWP program. And then I typeset Murray Bookchin's The Ecology of Freedom for AKPress while there and on way home. Does that count as reading?
On plane to and from Maine I typeset some more.
As a result of typesetting screwed up my neck.
In between trips, I did make it through Dee Dee Ramone's Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones. Ok. Fairly quick read but very little big picture.
And also Paul D Miller's Rhythm Science. Which is either great or a series of cliches about dj culture from the early 90s in a new font. Felt like an essay sold as a book. And an essay that had already been written.
Then had to go back and reread Abu-Lughod's Veils of Sentiment quickly once I got back for my class.
I'm on the last few pages of Fred Moten's In the Break which I adore. More on that once I finish it.
Also have been reading around in the new LRSN, The Thorn and the new Jennifer Moxley, Often Capitol but I'm trying not to write much about poetry reading here.
Somewhat exhausted thus. And thinking I've not been reading enough and yet really just wanting to watch some television but not being able to figure out what to watch even. Especially since the television, which is more a monitor, does not change channels really easily.
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