I used to work for Larry, back when I was in Art Skool. Christ, if he was 78, how old am I? (These types of thoughts have been occurring a lot lately--like when I describe something as vintage and it's actually antique, now.) But it's a weird thing, knowing intimate details about people, their families and their lifestyles, but being insignificant enough to learn he/she died in the newspaper. Funny, I had been thinking about him more than usual lately, and thought of even walking over to his loft to say hi.
I guess when the people around you start dying you know you're getting old.
On Seeing Larry Rivers' "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Museum of Modern Art
Now that our hero has come back to us
in his white pants and we know his nose
trembling like a flag under fire,
we see the calm cold river is supporting
our forces, the beautiful history.
To be more revolutionary than a nun
is our desire, to be secular and intimate
as, when sighting a redcoat, you smile
and pull the trigger. Anxieties
and animosities, flaming and feeding
on theoretical considerations and
the jealous spiritualities of the abstract
the robot? they're smoke, billows above
the physical event. They have burned up.
See how free we are! as a nation of persons.
Dear father of our country, so alive
you must have lied incessantly to be
immediate, here are your bones crossed
on my breast like a rusty flintlock,
a pirate's flag, bravely specific
and ever so light in the misty glare
of a crossing by water in winter to a shore
other than that the bridge reaches for.
Don't shoot until, the white of freedom glinting
on your gun barrel, you see the general fear.
posted on August 23, 2002 07:23:53 PM new
Wow! Nycyn, you were very fortunate to be in his art class!
These are a couple of his holocaust drawings. He was a very versitile artist.
River's drawing suggests the difficulty for survivors to tell their story of survival, given the unbelievability of the event. The artist is also suggesting the indelible images that cannot be removed from the survivor's mind-the massive death of Jewish children, and the omnipresent chimney of the crematorium.
posted on August 23, 2002 09:36:06 PM new
>>Wow! Nycyn, you were very fortunate to be in his art class!<<
I wasn't in his art class, hun. If he ever taught "art" I'm not aware of it. I honor people's privacy to not say any more (unless I know you real well, trust you, and you get me drunk enough) and I'm honored to have a number of people under I've worked with/for whose privacy I feel compelled to protect, and upon whose work I will not comment.
Awful post but I'm up too late.
It's just weird to learn of someone's death in the paper, and know the stuff the reporters don't.
That's all. So what. I was just kind of jarred by it.
posted on August 23, 2002 10:05:29 PM new
Hmmm . . . I'm color-blind in the art-life range. I know what I like and that's it. But it is strange to see those you know passing away before you. I've heard that the Obituary column goes more addictive with ever birthdate that passes by. Soon, I hear, yoiu can begin to see everyone you've known and loved dropping like rarefied ice in a hailstorm. Depressing, but inevitable.
