2 June 2020. Soldiers and Police.
And where are the images now? Two days, and the time of quiet has vanished. Was it real to begin with? That is, founded? An artificial respite, occasioned by the virus--for the first two months, everyone seemed to agree. But then a modern impatience set in. "They're all sitting together, on blankets, no one has masks," C told me, describing the park at the top of Orpheus on a recent evening. "I left..."
I agreed, of course--but then we can't leave the entire century. Even as we carry all centuries past, each one with its retelling. Goya's Third of May still holds. The animation comes through even in a sketch--the diagonals, of course--but they're the result, not the cause. Of a time lived, rather. On the side opposite, Giorgione--the watchman figure in The Tempest--replacing a woman's figure prior. That the origin of a militia could be maternal? No urgency in the pose, though. A watchman of dreams...
The middle section? Well, maybe they haven't told me their story yet. Whose doing? Who knows the story, that is? Thinking about the Mary Frank on the cover of a recent NYRB--saw it again this morning. An African figure leaping across the gap between two rocks. She's drawn him in silhouette--evocative, always--and the rocks are real, that is, they're fragments of photographs. She made this just last year--at 87...
Hope still...
_____
Note: Found the Mary Frank image on DC Moore Gallery site. It's a detail from a collage painting, As You Can See, made in 2018-19. And the rocks are actual rock--not fragments of photographs. Oil, acrylic, graphite, paper and stone on board, 49-1/4 x 96 inches.
