Summary
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2022/01/06/memories-of-herta/
“Memories of Herta”
January 7, 2022“Altercations of Pity”
January 7, 2022
Summary
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2008/06/01/altercations-of-pity-by-ricardo-morin/
Transcription
“Memories of Herta”
January 6, 2022*
In the summer of 1975 I took a painting-studio workshop under Herta’s instruction at the University at Buffalo: from that time evolved the bonds of our friendship. Herta’s wisdom came from her own vibrancy; her curiosity seemed boundless. She would explore various new subjects, from computer art to Japanese calligraphy. All this enhanced her as an artist. As a teacher dealing with students, she had little patience, and many of them felt intimidated by her demands. Most memorably, she taught me that an artist had to evoke the meaning lurking behind every image. Art was not a progressive evolution; nothing was new: everything had already been done; the imperative was to make something of significance.
Herta identified with the stories I shared about my family, and especially about my mother. She also told me stories about her own parents, particularly about how much she admired her father. Through the years, Herta’s loyalty was constant. She was as nurturing as a mother. Being 26 years older than I, she wondered why I wanted to spend so much time with her. I responded people of my age bored me.
The last semester of my junior year, Herta invited me to lunch with her husband Ernest, a cardiologist at the Veteran Administration Hospital next to the university. That morning, some students had set a fire outside my door. I called the university police but I accused no one. Later I told Herta what had happened. She and her husband assured me every thing would be fine. That afternoon we listened to the music of Handel and Brahms, talked about the poetry of mathematics, and discussed the polemics of anthropology of art. That night I did not return to my dormitory room, but stayed with a Polish graduate student of architecture: Jurek Pystrak invited me to stay with him until things were sorted out. Little did I know how significant Herta and Jurek were to become.
While studying for finals, someone I didn’t know introduced himself to me. It seemed he had been my bodyguard since the time of the fire in the dorm. I never found out why he was surveilling me. Later Herta commented: “… the university must have taken stock of how lax its security system was.”
After I went off to Yale for graduate studies and Jurek had moved to Berlin, Herta and I stayed in touch. Sometimes we met in Manhattan and would go to museums and galleries. After having finished my studies at Yale, I worked as a stage designer in Manhattan. In 1988 I visited Herta in Buffalo. Her husband Ernest had died two years prior. Herta and I went to the opening performance of Abingdon Square by María Irene Fornés (1930-2018) at the Studio Arena Theater. That night Herta and I had the opportunity to speak with her (I had executed stage-designs for three of her plays, which had premiered in New York City). Again in 1989, I visited Herta in Buffalo; there we attended a retrospective by the painter Seymour Drumlevitch, who had been both of ours academic advisor, artistic mentor, and friend.
In 1992, Herta came to my first one-man show of paintings in Manhattan. Though I did not see her then, we kept in touch by phone. Jurek’s partner Karl in Berlin told Herta that Jurek had died of AIDS in 1984. This came to both of us as a shock; it explained why we had not heard from Jurek for eight years. Herta was instrumental in connecting us to Jurek’s past. Karl then visited my painting studio in Tribeca. Afterwards, he invited Herta to a river cruise for a night on the Rhine to commemorate his impending death (he had dismissed my optimism about antiretroviral treatments as a missionary sentimentality). I had told Herta his outlook was totally fatalistic.
When I first met Herta, I intuited that she was struggling with depression. I learned later much of her search for affection had been uncorresponded. Her husband was also battling depression, having attempted suicide had it not been for his wife. Herta then looked after him through a long period of illness. After his death her circle of friends shrank. She thought herself unwelcome by other couples. In those years Herta was alone and riddled with guilt. Bewildered, she would knock at my door late at night, long past midnight, asking for support. Now in the 1990’s our roles were reversed: she was coming to my aid. Herta fed my optimism and helped me recover from the suicide of my partner of three years.
Then, in the spring of 2005, Herta met David, my partner of five years. As I walked to the avenue to help her catch a taxi, she told me that she only wished she had met some one like David for herself. Her statement did not surprise me, though we were touching each other’s past just on the edges. I understood that David reminded her of her desire to have met, during her lifetime, someone as sensitive as he.
In May 2008 David and I attended Herta’s 80th birthday party in Philadelphia. We met the entire family, including her grandchildren. Prior to that, Herta had often confided to me her insecurities about being a grandmother. She doubted how her grandchildren and son-in-law perceived her; whether she was accepted by them. She was self-conscious of her German accent, though she would glorify it as an appealing distinction. Although, these were significant years for Herta, the burden of a new life weighted heavily on her mind.
In 2011 my mother died from Alzheimer’s at age 84. During the preceding years I had mentioned to Herta that I used to call my mother in Venezuela to read to her “Don Quixote.” From time to time my mother would react with guttural sounds, which I took for affirmations of laughter. During these conversations, I began to become aware of Herta’s own difficulties in her perception of reality. She became easily agitated. She often felt misunderstood. She repeated past events, as if they were taking place now. I listened quietly, hoping she could regain her calm. I tried to interest her in other matters. Was this why she told me that it was important for us to be in contact? Thereafter I tried to call her until it was no longer feasible. After what seemed to be a long period of silence, her daughter Vivien called to let me know that Herta needed 24-hour a day care. David and I drove from Manhattan to visit her in Pennsylvania. In 2016 she was still able to talk. I thought she remembered me until our parting, when she said how nice it had been to meet me.
During our visit, Herta appeared alert. After we had shown her pictures of our place in Fort Lauderdale, she had made several whimsical remarks. Brashly, she criticized cushions that looked like doughnuts, and were completely out of place. Her wit was as sharp as ever. She even recounted her recommendations for graduate school, in which—to my horror—she had called me of the caliber of Leonardo da Vinci. The point is she relished being controversial.
The summer before her death, Herta was much more limited in movement and speech; she seemed listless, though she smiled often in what appeared to be simple resignation. In our banter with each other, she scowled and rolled her eyes mischievously glancing at everyone. We grinned at each other and she gasped with glee. Following this, Herta gestured, her hands around her mouth, as if asking why did I need a mustache. Then I showed her one of my geometric paintings. She looked at it, raised her brows, opening her eyes wide, and said “GOOD!" I was moved by her approval. She looked to be in command. As she continued savoring vanilla ice cream, she played aimlessly with her spoon, but she refused to let anyone help. When we said good-bye, we mentioned we would return in the spring, and she vouchsafed with the same facial expression, “GOOD!"
Memories about the loss of a loved one are painful, precisely because we have loved them. Accepting their past with humility is the one and only choice for their loss. It is an absolute; we embrace our existence through their memories. Grief is the time to endure suffering with forbearance.
Written by Ricardo Morin and edited by Billy Bussell Thompson
“Herta Lager Kane”
December 29, 2021Introduction
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Herta Lager Kane (1928-2021) was born in Vienna. With her family, she came to New York City in 1941–via Switzerland–fleeing Nazi persecution.
Herta began her education at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, School of Art and Architecture, before obtaining a B.F.A. in Graphic Design and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University at Buffalo.
Herta began her career as an adjunct professor of Painting in the University at Buffalo, and then spent most of her life as an associate professor of graphic design in the State University College at Buffalo. Herta’s paintings on the plasticity of geometric abstractions as well as her refined constructivist drawings have been exhibited at Buffalo’s Albright Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, and various alternative local cooperatives dedicated to video research and development for theater and television.
In her work Herta searched for a new direction in the depiction of pictorial space, resulting from the great legacy of our mentor Seymour Drumlevitch. In her own words, Herta aspired to arrive at the power “… of a mystical ambiguity and elusiveness.”
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An Elegy
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Herta always had a generous warmth for and a profound insight into humanity. Even when we were most fragile, in our moments of trouble, we did not have to say much to assure each other that everything would be fine; even in silence, we supported one another with a sense of wonderment, at times even with great humor. From the time when I first met Herta in 1975, as a painting instructor in the University at Buffalo, she shared her wealth of knowledge and always provided encouragement. She looked after my well-being until she was no longer able. Our friendship attested to the fact that no one has control over his destiny, though our love persisted beyond such boundaries. Herta’s confidence—in the labors of becoming a visual artist and surviving the myriad uncertainties of a professional career—enabled my finding answers to managing whatever fate provided. Her humanity, dignity, and intelligence were a fountain of inspiration for all of us, who had the good fortune of knowing her. More than a mentor Herta became a loving and loyal friend. No one else could fill her place in my heart. Herta and I had strong bonds. I owe her my standing, not only emotional maturity but also my intellectual development. Without her, I would be different; to her I owe the inspiration of authenticity and thoughtfulness.
R.F.M.
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In Memoriam Herta Lager Kane
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Destiny
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Fate and chance drew out of our tears a smile
and brought solace to our failures;
then we looked up after we'd sunk
with the confidence
of climbing back.
In loneliness
we found for ourselves company,
and in helping others, we were helped.
In our pursuit of the impossible good,
we came to know our failures.
In the brevity of each moment,
nothing seemed to fit for being possessed;
when we marveled at the great arc of time,
this never died,
even in the absence of hope.
The ups and downs from the goddesses, the three Moirai and Tyche,
in their dispensation of favors and troubles,
couldn’t keep us from moving on,
even if we met each other and were
hopelessly aware of our imperfections.
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Ricardo F Morin, December 29, 2021, coauthored by Billy Bussell Thompson
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Edited by Billy Bussell Thompson
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Herta’s Art
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“Wislawa Szymborska”
December 19, 2021The Liminality of Language:
Words are symbols not necessarily truthful. We endow them with meaning in order to appease our bewilderment before aspects of reality we cannot fully comprehend. Perhaps writing is found in an effort for our conscience to overcome its fragility.
Anonymous
Wisława Szymborska was born July 2, 1923 in Bnin [now part of Kórnik], Poland; died February 1, 2012 in Krakow. She was a poet, whose intelligent and empathetic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical questions earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/szymborska-wislawa
In memoriam Herta Lager Kane.
A Few Words About The Soul 1
We have a soul from time to time. Nobody has her all the time, nor possesses her forever. Day after day, year after year, may go by without her. Sometimes she nests in us for a while, in the fears and raptures of childhood, and sometimes at our surprise of being old. Rarely does she lend us a hand with routine tasks, moving furniture, or baggage, or walking miles in shoes that don't fit. She runs away when meat is to be ground, and hopes are to be met. Out of every thousand talks she'll take part in one, if at that. She likes silence. When one’s entrails go from dull to intense pain she gives up. She is choosy: she doesn't like us in crowds. Our desires to get ahead and hustling for advantage make her sick. For her, joy and sorrow are not opposites. She is within us in the union of both. We count on her when we're sure of nothing and curious about everything. The things she likes are mirrored clocks with pendulums working all the while, even when no one looks at them. She doesn't say whence she comes nor when she'll leave again, even tough she is waiting for these questions. For some reason we need her, and she needs us just as well.
Footnote:
1: Poem written by Wislawa Szymborska: published July 1, 2000, original translation from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Claire Cavanagh in 2006, transposed into Spanish and English by Ricardo Morin and Billy Bussell Thompson, December 2021.
“Book of Changes”
June 22, 2021*
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Ricardo Federico Morin Tortolero
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Editor Billy Bussell Thompson
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In memoriam Eva Lowenberger
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“The allure of success
forces truth under pressure
and loses it in its own entanglement.”
Ricardo F Morin – April 2021
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INTRODUCTION
Book of Changes arose from working through memory in the act of writing. The process determined the direction and nature of the story. Real memories, chance events, and the shifting conditions of daily life were brought together in search of unity, despite their many possible forms. What emerged was a collage stripped of what was superficial and directed toward its own realism.
Inauthenticity had to be dismissed. Excess also had to be removed. In that process, the story revealed the course it had to take. Yet what was left out remains part of its nature and bears its own mark on the whole.
For me, the process was not unlike creating an abstract painting. What occurs in the solitude of the studio through construction and reconstruction took place instead through language. Each word had to become essential to the balance of the narrative, much as each brushstroke must justify itself within a painting.
Book of Changes seeks to formulate memory and the shifts in perception that occur over time. Though the work draws on lived experience, the personal and particular are not its principal end. What matters more is how one’s truth changes, and how one’s humanity remains difficult to grasp.
Ricardo F Morin
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Chapter 1
Ignis Fatuus: the whole world could collapse; to live, we need false hopes.
Chapter 2
Your paternal grandfather hardly ever spoke. Lying next to him, you suffered his snores. One Sunday morning you sat quietly on the bench with him while he played the organ at the Church of Bella Vista in Caracas. One Sunday afternoon, he took you to feed pigeons at the Plaza Bolívar in Puerto La Guaira. One early Monday, he sat at a carved desk and sipped hot coffee from a demitasse saucer. For a time, he moved his thumbs and whistled. Suddenly he chases you from the house in the belief that you had broken something of his. Fearfully, you ran across the street and were almost hit by a car. You joined older children playing marbles.
Chapter 3
We ignore so much that humility becomes a necessity, not a choice. Nothing is conclusive.
Chapter 4
Your maternal grandmother never engaged in small talk. To dissuade you from sucking your thumb, she applied hot sauce to your left hand before bed. You simply switched to your right thumb.
Chapter 5
Man does not control who he is, nor how he thinks, nor how he perceives himself. You do not control who you are, how you think, or how you perceive yourself. Asking why you exist, or observing how you change over time, does not confer control.
Chapter 6
In his cell, Father Manuel, the math teacher, talked to himself. His murmurs were barely audible. He pressed on us what makes a man great and what makes him small. The principal, Father Lisandro, replied that there was no explanation for evil in the world.
Chapter 7
Can one dispel fears of the existence of God and the devil? It cannot be done. Does culture, like tradition and belief, arise from the imagination?
Chapter 8
As a friend, Rogelio was considerate and attentive. Your mother warned you not to grow too close to him: he is poor and black. You replied: poverty is not shameful and, besides, your father’s skin is only slightly lighter.
Chapter 9
Do you seek meaning in imaginative worlds and daydreams?
Chapter 10
During lunch, Uncle Calixto sat across from you at the end of the table. Casually, he announced the suicide of a couple he had introduced you to only a month earlier. Your consternation was obvious; Uncle Calixto insisted that you inquire no further. Years later, in the same truculent tone, he accused you of evil thoughts: You have the devil in you, for being gay.
Chapter 11
You asked how moral a person can be if one believes in the devil, hell, and eternal damnation. For you, this morality was defective. For you, religion is no different from astrology.
Chapter 12
Fifteen years ago, Francis died of cancer. His brother grieved as if one of his own limbs had been amputated. Years later, his brother set his home ablaze before drinking antifreeze. The family was not surprised. Neighbors blamed you for not expunging his pain. Alarmed, one of them called the next day to accuse you of exposing forty-five stories to conflagration.
Chapter 13
Suicide is no different from murder. To kill oneself is no different from killing another. Both are acts of cowardice. Consciousness belongs only to the living. To end one’s life is to turn against one’s nature. Madness may be named, but it does not relieve the agony. The memory of love is the only consolation.
Chapter 14
Just before first Communion, your father brought up death. You replied that it is inevitable. Later you heard him tell your mother that your answer was quite unexpected. At Christmas time, you told your father that you knew all about Santa. He answered: What do you plan to do about it? You just shrugged your shoulders and asked for his blessing before going to bed.
Chapter 15
Do you suffer from not being innocent?
Chapter 16
The grocer said he knew your family, so you asked him for a ride home on the back of his pick-up. When you arrived there, you found your father in a state of panic. You had disappeared from him, and you thought he had forgotten you. Thereafter, you did not go to your art classes for ten years. Then, as a teenager, you wandered around your neighborhood. One day, in the early evening, you found an older boy studying. He was memorizing something when you interrupted him. He asked why you were offering him candy, and you said: Why not? Aren’t we neighbors? When you got home late, your parents were leaving to report you missing.
Chapter 17
Can anyone measure consciousness?
Chapter 18
Each time you came through the gate to your friend’s house, his German Shepherd lurched forward until he recognized your voice and scent. Your friend had stayed out of school that day, not feeling well. Without preamble, he volunteered that he was being sent off to military school. Then he said he was terribly upset and had to get rid of his stress. You sat quietly at the foot of his bed. The two of you exchanged monosyllables while he masturbated beneath the blanket. He tells you he has to beat and to come. These words were meaningless to you. With a friendly glance, you left, never to see him again.
Chapter 19
You did not ward off fear so much as reckon with its fleeting existence, as when waking from a dream.
Chapter 20
Vacationing with a classmate, your attention was on his older brother Francisco. Each time your bodies touched you trembled. You feared becoming overwhelmed. Long after his death, his appeal still rushes after you.
Chapter 21
From early childhood, innocence had already been lost to ache. You had long been fair game.
Chapter 22
At 18, you met Ennio Lombana after crossing into the neighbors’ house. You became his sexual victim. You went to university four thousand miles away.
Chapter 23
You tried never to think of fear, yet it becomes an obsession.
Chapter 24
Your father and your art tutor both encouraged education in North America, yet they feared its implications. Their memories stand in silence.
Chapter 25
Ignorance is the essential condition of existence. Arrogance obscures anxiety, loneliness, fear, and the absence of love. Rationality cannot be achieved through dogma.
Chapter 26
La Nena Pérez was a golden rebel for José Luis. Her beauty bewitched all who saw her. For his wife Antonieta, however, she was an interloper. Decades later, a letter from him arrived from Andalucía. In it, Antonieta was praised as toda una señora. In a self-deprecating tone, he lauded your father. You had mentioned that La Nena did not recognize you at a chance encounter in Caracas. He was beside himself on learning that your voice was no longer familiar to her. She seemed to have forgotten that you had once canoed across Tucacas Bay.
Chapter 27
How can there be love if one is empty? Ennui uncovers that emptiness. Self-importance aspires to enlightenment just as yearning does to sanctity and humility. To find pure love is a matter of luck.
Chapter 28
Before entering the university, you enrolled in a course in English as a second language. The professor made learning exciting. His patience disarmed you. At mealtime, you spoke on and on, forgetting to eat, and he smiled tenderly.
Chapter 29
Desperation cannot relieve suffering.
Chapter 30
Three Marys flew from South America to Niagara Falls for a visit. They rode the Ferris Wheel at the amusement park on the shores of Lake Ontario. Their visit was a complete mystery, except that they believed they were in contact with extraterrestrials. One of them realized she wasn’t the object of Ennio Lombana’s affections. Your mother’s resulting breakdown was immediate.
Chapter 31
In 1977, hungry and destitute, you came close to dying. You distracted yourself in discos. You met Donald Bossak and Paul Barret: the former insecure and the latter suicidal. You moved into the university dorms to face a group of rioters who had been egged on by your prospective roommate. They shout: Away with the foreigner, setting fire to your door. At graduation, you found out the university had assigned you a bodyguard. By then, you had come to know a student. This Polish dissident, Jurek Pystrak, comforted your misery. The summer before graduation, you studied together in Austria. After graduation, he went on to continue his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and you went on to Yale for the MFA. Jurek died in the mid-80s in Berlin. Only later did you hear it was AIDS.
Chapter 32
Technology extends our lives into preconceived worlds. Algorithmic archetypes impose order on bias, through which they control, sell, and manipulate you.
Chapter 33
Every weekend, you and Jurek traveled between New Haven and Philadelphia. Before taking his Fulbright, he suggested it was okay to date another during his absence. You took this to be a lack of loyalty. From Berlin, he wrote he had met a film historian. After Jurek’s death, Karl visited your art studio. He found your geometrical canvases oddly formal. Was his conversation an echo of his own influence on Jurek and of his own vision of the freedom of artistic expression? He later wrote from Berlin he was dying. In his letter, he says your quests regarding treatments are futile missionary pretenses.
Chapter 34
But it is not a mission, it is compassion. Karl was filled with his own memories; you begged him to keep up hope.
Chapter 35
Never have you cried for someone as you did when Benjamin Ivry left to work in Paris in 1984. After he left, your old friend Carol Magar helped you negotiate American citizenship. Eighteen years later, she died of cervical cancer, and five years earlier, Benjamin had returned from France. Was it his stance of irony that broke you apart as friends? You last spoke to him at a bookstore on Park Avenue and 57th Street. There, on the occasion of promoting his book Maurice Ravel: His Life, you introduced him to your husband David. Benjamin excused himself and left abruptly to meet his agent. Later that year, Benjamin moved to Thailand. He became a biographer and translator of well-known 20th-century figures in the arts. Only thanks to the World Wide Web can you see his image as it ages, and his prose continues to provide you with his particular métier. He remains your provocateur.
Chapter 36
In 1987, you were diagnosed with AIDS. Before the diagnosis, you came to know an Episcopal clergyman and a TV soap actor. Both fought for your attention. For years one disapproved of the other. The actor was ironic and the clergyman was a libertine. The clergyman died of a heart attack in 2008. The actor is in his late 80s. His husband derides you.
Chapter 37
During the years of AIDS hysteria, your friends Philip Jung and Tom Bunny were not scared of death. You comforted them when they lay quietly on your lap.
Chapter 38
Nearly blind, Lyda saw herself as a patron of Latino culture in the United States. She enjoyed curating art shows in Midtown Manhattan. A provincial teacher turned diplomat imposed on her the idea that they had the opportunity to open up the American art establishment. Then a pseudo progressive Bolivarian revolution turns them into populists.
Chapter 39
You listened to grand stories. Their aspirations, akin to religious fervor, never materialized. They are grifters unable to give up their desire to dominate.
Chapter 40
Painting keeps you sane, said a friend who had come to your loft. Your paintings developed an abstract vocabulary. You painted at night and worked as a commercial designer during the day. When your health failed, you renounced everything and chose refuge with your family in South America.
Chapter 41
One learns to live with fear.
Chapter 42
You became unmoored in your native land. You ran into repugnance from both the medical establishment and your family.
Chapter 43
In 1994, the Venezuelan medical institutions were collapsing. A few doctors and several businesses were presented with a proposal for Fundación Metaguardia and countersigned it. It had been registered as a program for people with terminal diseases. The proposal went to the Venezuelan commissions of Health, Education, and Culture, and to the United Nations. It failed. The Venezuelan Ministry of the Family tries to turn the program into activities for the feebleminded. Nothing happened.
Chapter 44
In November 1995, you flew from Caracas to Los Angeles. You had been nominated for an Emmy for your work on In Search of Dr. Seuss. The morning after, you awoke to a fever of 108 degrees. From a hospital bed, you hallucinate making love to an angel descending upon you. To your nurse, you explained that death is an illusion. In your mind, you speak of Egyptian gods and goddesses, of Gestapo agents meandering inside your room, of Zapata fighting for Mexico’s freedom, and of an intergalactic journey on a spaceship hovering over the hospital. A nurse asked you to open your eyes. Your body had begun to slow down; your eyesight had become magnified. You pulled the intravenous line out of your arm and wanted to flee. You could not walk, but somehow you dance to music played on the nurses’ radio. You feel yourself in a different time. You see your home in Venezuela as you crawl on its floor. The grouts are like rivers. Then you open your eyes to the ocean. Your heart pulsates. You climb to your home’s roof and stare at the cloudless sky. Fractals of light vibrate like thousands of rainbows. Now you are awake; your ankles are weak. You stand up. You turn to the doctor and say: What does dignity mean to you? Are you a human being?
Chapter 45
A few months later, you were in your mother’s house. Your father came every week to visit. As you became stronger over the following months, he says you should return to the U.S.
Chapter 46
In November 1996, you flew from Caracas to New York. Your nine-month stay in Venezuela violated your residency status. I believe I was dying and unable to return, you answered. Sir, you may proceed, the agent finally said.
Chapter 47
Some weeks later, your father fell at home and suffered a concussion. After surgery, he died in the hospital. Your stepmother had locked him away as if he were a wild beast. In grief, you painted again. With no more success than before, galleries continued to reject your work. You traveled to Europe with your mother. She spoke incessantly, and nine years later she lost her voice to Alzheimer’s. Without parents, you have no bridge to your brothers and sisters. Throughout the years of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, you helped the family.
Chapter 48
In 2012, painting had become a liability to your health. You closed the studio, and digital technology turns into your medium. Your confidence returns.
Chapter 49
In 1997, you meet Nelson. Together you hiked the Amazon rainforest all the way to Angel Falls. You also swam together in Los Roques. With you he showed himself vulnerable. Was his suicide due to his brother’s death or to your leaving him?
Chapter 50
In August of 1999, you confessed to a Nicaraguan priest in the Vatican. He tells you to measure your responsibilities. You sobbed inconsolably over Nelson’s death. The priest’s response was: This is not the place. From the Vatican, you returned to the hotel, where you locked yourself up. Upon returning to the United States, you sought therapy. There you discussed a relationship with a married English teacher with children who tells you: You have killed me as well. Then you fell into a relationship with an alcoholic who tells you the same.
Chapter 51
Therapy became a crutch and constrained your freedom. When you left, the therapist was disappointed. He had grown accustomed to directing your thinking and actions. That was his empowerment, and much to his chagrin, you left him.
Chapter 52
When you and David meet, he fills a void in you, and you fill one in him. You find respite in an imperfect world.
Chapter 53
He awoke to an itching jaw with stubble. You rubbed against his face and breathed in his musky scent. His eyes had the expression of a loving child.
Chapter 54
His glowing eyes hold a timid wonder.
Chapter 55
Together you travel the world: the Atlantic, the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea.
Chapter 56
On December 27, 2000, a 39-year-old man jumped to his death from a Manhattan apartment building. The leap occurred in Hell’s Kitchen, near your home. He was your primary doctor, and you were both HIV-positive. The week before, you had told him that the medication he prescribed had left you sleep deprived.
Chapter 57
A few friends from my childhood remain in touch today. At 94, Herta is my oldest friend. I have known her for 46 years. She is my mentor and Platonic friend since college. She lost her memory to Alzheimer’s. From Yale graduate school are Angiolina Melchiori, now a news director at RAI in Rome; Ariel Fernández, an American-Argentinian physical chemist and pharmaceutical researcher; and Maider Dravasa, a French Basque with a Ph.D. in linguistics who lives in Paris. All three have been my friends for forty years. As with all my friends, we know the ebb and flow of our strengths.
Then there is Billy Bussell Thompson, once my collaborator. I believe he suffers what Job did not. I have known him since 1987. My true education begins when I meet him. Over the years, we coauthor often, including his editing of many of my WordPress blogs. When I write in Spanish, Italian, or French, Billy is there to guide and to order my thoughts across languages. Book of Changes evolves from a collage of reflections: memory, my tension with the social sciences, my love of history, an interest in meter and its rise and fall in American poetry, suicide prevention, and self-repair. Billy brings precision to my prose: he clears vagueness and scattered allusions and helps me overcome the limits of my bilingual fluency.
Most importantly, there is my husband of over twenty years, David Lowenberger, who exerts the most significant influence on who I am. His friends and relatives also matter deeply. Much to my good fortune, his mother, my mother-in-law Eva, gave me twenty years of friendship. Dignified in every respect, she is an inspiration as a mother and as a friend. She died during the COVID pandemic nearly five weeks before turning 98. I dedicate these stories to her memory.
“Fern Forest”
March 21, 2021*
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Ricardo F. Morin, Fern Forest Nature Center in Coconut Creek, Florida
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Cotton clouds zipping by
Along the baby blue sky
Point And Shoot, P.A.S.
Put your hat on, and stick your gut out
The whipping sound of dragonflies
Crossing our walking trails
As spiraling branches with new leaves
You move and breathe
White Toadstools popped like plastic toys
Lizards scurry and scamper across our trails
Rushing briskly over mangled trunks
Blackened with age, still brown
A clearance brightened by the sun, no longer under shade
A hammer in the distance: thump, thump, thump
A young family walks ahead of our way
A fluttering swallowtail dances over the moistened soil
Flapping wings in black and yellow stripes
It stays in one place among mud and grey stones
Fed by minerals, feeed byyyy miii-neee-rals
It splays its wings and stays in one place
A yellow necklace across its black planes
A giant dragonfly also feeds off the mud
Its wings shimmering light
Its body looks like a reptile
With big eyes
A giant dragonfly
A Chihuahua passed us by
Left or right? Left …
For bigger fish to fry
Surface skimmers surf and linger on the water
These two look as if they are skating or fighting
A banded water snake skims over the water
And a young turtle turns round and round
Iridescent small fish with long tales
Look, look, look, look
The turtle swims slowly away
See, see, see
Another serpent undulates as well
Between water lilies
Lying over the mirrored surface
Through reflections fronds go in and out.
Point And Shoot. P.A.S.
“In Tenebris”
December 11, 2020*
—————————————————————
In memoriam José Galdino: my father.
_________________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Billy Bussell Thompson, PhD in Linguistics and Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University, for his attentive reading and for the intellectual and editorial exchange that accompanied my work over many years. I am equally grateful for the editorial subtlety and insight of my sister Bonnie Morín, playwright, producer, and director of the Madrid Method Workshop in Spain (https://www.metodomadrid.es/), and of her daughter Natalia Velarde (@nix.conbotas), graphic artist and author of fanzines. I also give thanks for a long-awaited reunion with Bonnie’s other daughter, my niece Camila Velarde, Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters, and choreographer. Finally, I thank my husband David Lowenberger, whose influence has been a constant in my life. His wisdom and perception helped guide the writing of this story.
Ricardo F. Morin T., 21 February 2021
_________________________________________________
PREFACE:
Choking On His Own Saliva
My father once told me how bleak his life would be if his identity were to disappear under the orthodoxy of religion. It was no accident that, in reaction to the pieties of five generations, he became a criminologist. For most of his life, he regarded the traditional stories of retribution, and the binary belief in reward and condemnation, as harmless fantasies, at least until they hardened into substitutes for inquiry. As a young man, he based his doctoral dissertation on those very premises. In the end, however, the convictions he had dismissed as delusional became his own.
I do not think a person must become fearful or destructive, except when the search for meaning hardens into attachment to fiction and leads to violence. Whether violence arises from retribution or from self-preservation, the only remedy lies in knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.
As I reflected on my father’s contradictions, I remembered what he told me when I was a child: that lying was a skill of survival. It allowed a person to hide, not necessarily out of moral weakness, but sometimes out of charity, or out of fear of being judged. For him, lying belonged to the making of a competent adult. It concealed imperfection and vulnerability. Yet if sincerity or honesty threatened his survival, it was because he preferred to invent a story rather than confront his ignorance and the limits of his own importance. Was it natural for him to hide behind lies, or was it an expression of his own arrogance? Perhaps he spent his life choking on his own saliva. He lived under the illusion that truth could be avoided, or that he could control the refusal to face it. Was this a fear of losing control? Was that one reason he could never understand himself? The mystery did not lie in self-examination, but in the fictionalizing of his own life, no differently from our forebears.
__________________________
Gangs of West Harlem
1
The Process
For the third time I was serving on jury duty. As on previous occasions, I introduced myself as a visual artist during the voir dire. This time the defense lawyer inquired if I was a portraitist. I reasoned to myself the question was intended to probe the degrees of observation a painter aspired to. I replied that my interest as a visual artist was in the conceptual processes of abstract art, no different from that of a portraitist or any other representational painter, seeking to observe and interpret the essence of a subject. What I chose to represent through abstraction or conception was just as concrete as that of a sitter for a portraitist.
2
The Rules
The trial concerned the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, and I was selected juror number 12. Previously, I served in civil cases. In civil cases, the preponderance of the evidence is the determining principle. In a criminal trial, the ruling principle is the measure of reasonable doubt. The rules were cautionary and aimed to avoid bias on the part of the jury. In their deliberations jurors were to concentrate on the evidence presented and not on background. Also, jurors were not to share information with other people outside of their own forum. I did not know how my participation in a murder trial would affect me. The day after the trial began, juror number 11 was replaced by an alternate.
Testimony lasted 17 days. During that time our electronic devices, cell phones, laptops, and tablets were allowed. On the 18th day, when jury’s deliberations started, these devices were taken away from us. Before this, we had been permitted to speak on matters not related to the trial. We were a diverse group and had very little in common. During court hearings, we had been allowed to take notes while we sat in the jury box. After the days’ proceedings, our note pads were left on our respective seats. When deliberations began, we could take our pads back and forth between the jury box and the jury room. Only then, were we able to study our notes and refer to our observations. Only then could we begin to talk about the case with each other.
3
The Jurors
The foreman of the jury was an office manager, who felt comfortable in his role as moderator. His communication skills were excellent; even when he disagreed, his manner never expressed condescension. Some jurors were reticent and never voiced a judgment one way or the other. The youngest member of the jury did not find the witness of the crime unreliable. Other jurors were open minded. A teacher remained calm throughout; she listened to others before expressing her own views. Another juror was impatient about the length of the trial. She complained that she had a toddler to care for at home. Aside from myself, there were two other retirees, one of whom was a corporate lawyer, who reminded us of the distinction between civil and criminal cases. Reasonable doubt existed in varying degrees for every member of the jury, save for the youngest one.
4
The Defendant: In dubio pro reo
The defense lawyer had her client plead the fifth amendment. The accused gazed solicitously, with a kind of clawing eagerness. He looked seven years younger in his freshly starched white shirt and tie. His hair was a cropped Afro, and he had across his upper lip a straight mustache. His appearance had been arranged to suggest decency. Since the time of the murder, he has been a detainee at Rikers Island. Sitting barely 30 feet away from the jury, the accused bore a grin across his face whenever he looked towards the jurors. Some members of the jury interpreted his countenance as gloating. Others saw his expression as self-pity or abjection, even an attempt at winning us over. His grin, a kind of twisted grimace, was unflappable and even disturbing to us. By the end, however, we dismissed our apprehensions. It was impossible to know whether the accused was remorseful or just trying to beguile us. More important was the question of consistency. If doubt was to play a part in the case, it had to arise from the evidence. The crucial question was whether the accused had acted alone. Certainty had to come from the assessment of facts, and not be based on appearances.
5
The Prosecution
The prosecution charged the defendant with “first degree” murder. This implied premeditation with malice aforethought. The prosecution added two other charges: murder in the “second degree,” suggesting lack of premeditation. The third charge was for felony murder: death caused during the commission of a felony using an illegal weapon and with extreme indifference to human life. Rendering judgment on these charges rested on intent. Each member of the jury would have to reach an approximation of the truth, and no other reasonable explanation could explain the evidence presented at the trial. The verdict, of course, would have to be unanimous. Proof of the direct involvement of the accused was paramount. The evidence had to show the accused had committed the crime. Was the victim’s death the result of self-defense or was it deliberate? The question before the jury was whether there were circumstances outside the control of the accused. How did his instincts and fears come into play with his own actions. Could the jurors differentiate all of these aspects?
6
Testimonies
I
July’s weather was overbearingly hot. The air conditioning in the jury room was old and as inefficient as it was in the court room; the jury room was even more stifling than the courtroom, particularly between the long intervals of each day’s proceedings. The room was barely large enough for the long table and its 12 uncomfortable chairs. In this tight space it was almost impossible for the jurors to walk around, to go to the water-fountain, or even to the single restroom available. Lunch breaks were much appreciated. On the few days when there was a breeze, we could open the windows, but had to put up with street noise. In the court room, no such liberties were permitted
II
By the third week of the proceedings, the judge began standing with his arms folded against his hips. With a baffled face, he would turn around and stand behind his chair, his black robe half unfurled, and his necktie loosened. At times, he assumed what seemed to be a meditative expression with both arms folded over the back of the chair. Other times, he supported himself with one of his elbows over the back of the chair. One of his hands was placed against his chin, giving him a certain look of abandon. For me, this informality broke up the monotony of the case, as if it were helping him stay awake, and mollified the stultifying heat.
III
The aspects of this case had been under investigation for seven years. We, the jurors, were astonished at the lack of cohesion to the accusations. The statements by the witnesses in no way corresponded to the arguments made by the prosecutor. In fact, the prosecution’s case seemed to have lost its coherence. One wondered if there was any justification for this trial. The only merit to the case seemingly was using the authority of a jury trial to render a verdict, either for exoneration or conviction.
IV
According to testimony given by the police, the crime resulted from two rival gangs. The gang members’ ages ranged from 12 to 40. The defendant’s lawyer provided their pictures to the jury. The pictures showed them in expensive clothing. Both groups seemed to be showing off, as if they were the source of the neighborhood’s pride. Each group had its own hand signs as mottoes. According to the police, on the night of the murder the two gangs fought over their territory for the peddling of drugs. The defendant became the prime suspect two years into the investigation. According to one of the detectives, the defendant sought to intimidate younger members of the opposing gang, as a means of establishing his own authority over them. The defendant’s motive was said to be an attempt to sooth his own anger for being “dissed.” The jury found these to be speculative. For us the only facts credible were those of the struggle between them.
V
The first eyewitness, aged 13 years at the time of the murder, was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s defense. He had been a close friend of the victim, and his proximity to the deed made him valuable. During the course of several days of testimony, two officers escorted him in dressed in an orange jumpsuit, both hands and ankles shackled. They removed only his handcuffs when he sat down on the stand. From the defendant’s attorney, we learned that he had been in custody for two years on a different murder charge. The defendant’s attorney asked him: Are you here today in exchange for lenience for the indictment you face? He thrust his arms and shoulders forward. His answers seemed evasive while the prosecution objected. The question was withdrawn, but the jury would not forget it. His hand partly covered his face, especially his eyes and nose. His head shifted from side to side. He pointed to the defendant, rubbed his chin, and accused him of being the killer. Yet, his manner was difficult to read and seemed manipulative. Obviously, he had not seen from where the bullet had come. His allegations sounded implausible, as if they had been rehearsed. He had an air of entitlement, exuding hatred. During the prosecution’s examination, he revealed his conversion to Islam, and stated he had become a better person by the teachings of the Prophet. For the jury, however, his demeanor was that of an unrepentant malefactor. His lack of doubt hinted at a life of crime, without a sense of any morality.
VI
The prosecutor’s second witness spoke softly, yet his testimony seemed tentative. By his own account, he had been at the edges of the riotous horde. A circle had formed around the hooded individual and the victim. When questioned by the defense, he hesitated before admitting having seeing another armed buddy. But at the end, he relented. He recalled that other gang members had shot into the sky. He acknowledged that other guns had been used, thus accounting for multiple shells found by the police. The bullet, however, that pierced the victim’s heart was a mystery. The jury was at a loss as to what had gone on. Was it retaliation? Was it the shooter egging on accomplices? No answer was forthcoming, neither from this witness nor from the previous one.
VII
Even though the defense attorney tried to unravel the credibility of the prosecutor’s two eyewitnesses, she tripped over her own words. Not unnoticed was her assertion that the gunman might have carried a gun inside the pocket of his hoodie. Since no one had yet claimed to having seen him draw a gun, her attention to this matter seemed out of place. Was she trying to negate the hooded man’s innocence, while at the same time admitting to her client’s involvement? Jurors never understood her purpose, since the identity of the person in the hood had never been made clear. For the defendant her digression was inconsequential. But not for the jury because it augmented our doubts. Nevertheless, the defense attorney rebutted the evidence gathered by the police.
VIII
On the night of the murder, a pedestrian called the neighborhood foot patrol’s attention to a commotion on the street. The patrol did nothing until the police arrived in their cars and found the body of someone killed. The crowd around the victim had already dispersed and none of the neighbors willingly spoke of what they had seen. The jury was dismayed that the arrest warrant was issued two years after the event. The defense lawyer emphasized that, in the course of those two years, any witnesses’ recollection surely must have faded. She argued: “… just to be pointing a finger at an alleged culprit, out of a desire to seek closure, should not be deemed evidentiary in and of itself.”
7
The Evidence
We asked to see the video evidence before and after the shooting. Witnesses had stated that the defendant on the night of the murder had gone to a tenement looking for a gun, which was shared by all members of his gang. There were two cameras, both of which had restrictive angles of vision. The video was grainy: the product of low resolution security cameras. There was no sound and the imagery was choppy. The lobby camera showed someone descending the stairs to exit, wearing a baseball cap underneath a hoodie. Only his lips and chin were visible. The jury’s dilemma was how to identify the person. The woman with the child at home emphasized “…those features could have been any member of either gang.”
The crime took place at midnight. There was no traffic and the street was poorly lighted. For a second time, we examined the tape from the outside camera. We concentrated on the footage just before the shooting. It was murky and it showed the person in the hoodie stepping outside the building. The victim’s back was visible and his friend was behind him. There were several flashes of gun fire with one of them coming from next to the victim. A person in the hoodie faced the camera wielding a gun.
Ballistic evidence showed that the trajectory of the bullet came from a short distance before it entered the body of the victim. Maybe the shot came from the position of the hooded man but this was only a guess. More importantly, no guns were ever recovered and we still did not know who the gunman was. In summary, the testimonies, the analysis, and the written accounts were all useless to us.
8
The Community
Jurors were in agreement that the accounts given by the two gangs and the community were not to be trusted. The two gangs lived in two adjacent blocks. Drug infested, the community had become their victim. Solidarity showed itself as hostility. Assault not only on the street but at home was rife. Mothers, brothers, and sisters were commonly attacked. The death rate was high, which, in and of itself, was evidence that this community was sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Teenagers commonly stole and murdered. Only the rare adolescent was exempt. No social program could help. We, as jurors, were we only agents of retribution?
9
Blind Justice
From the first days of deliberation, the jurors were uncertain if the accused had taken any part at all. On our fourth day, the young woman who had been most adamant about the guilt of the accused began to waver. Most jurors still thought him to be innocent, but four remained unconvinced. The more jurors accepted their own limitations, the more difficult it became to form an opinion. The phrase blind justice turned piercingly poignant.
10
Unanimity
The majority argued with the four hold outs. Tensions rose with the thermometer. The heat of midday, the humidity, and the noise from the street became increasingly unbearable. With the windows closed, we turned on the anemic air conditioner and became more fearful than ever of not measuring up to the task. Our disagreements put us on edge and were nerve racking. Slowly we moved towards common ground. One by one, concessions were made. By the time of the third vote, the foreman hesitantly voted against conviction. There were still three jurors holding strongly for conviction. We gave ourselves a minute of silence before voting again. The decision was unanimous innocent. Surprisingly, had we presented a wrongful conviction, or had we derailed the case?
11
Announcing the Verdict
Jurors summoned the guard and handed him a yellow manila envelope with the verdict. After we had returned to the court room, the judge polled us individually. Indelibly imprinted on us was the murdered child’s mother’s face. From the start she had sat alone on the back left corner of the court room. Her sorrow contrasted sharply with the defendant’s family. I felt wary of these families’ reactions. I was deflated, even felt inadequate, indeed insignificant. Knowledge here was slippery.
An uproar reigned in the courtroom. The cries of the murdered child’s mother collided with the joy of the defendant’s family. Repeatedly, the judge admonished the room to be silent. He closed by thanking the jurors for their service, who were in a state of shock. Were we right or were we wrong?, I asked myself.
12
The Randomness of Truth
Chance dominated the jury’s participation. I recalled with fear my father’s imperative about hiding behind fiction as an instrument of self reliance.
The jury broke up. The judge stared at us with a smile as we climbed down to the exit. We walked to where we had deliberated and collected our belongings. We moved to an elevator at the opposite end of the courthouse. Below, the family of the acquitted man awaited us and, as we approached, they shouted their deafening thanks. Whatever had shaped that life remained unbroken.
________________________________________________
Epilogue
Ended the theater of misalliance, jurors, lawyers, and witnesses became actors in the absurd. Our verdict was uncertain. Loss of life, and life itself, stood foremost. Society seemed predetermined. Advantage and disadvantage stood in confrontation. What role do abandonment and darkness play in the human condition? I pondered. It just seems as if, under destiny, no one becomes an instrument of justice.
Ricardo F Morín T
“Metaphors of Silence”
November 24, 2010*
Medium: Oil On Linen
Size: 14 by 18 by 3/4 inches
2009
*
Acknowledgments:
David Lowenberger,
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986),
Carlo Giuseppe Soarés (1892–1976).
*
Introduction
An artist’s Manifesto by Ricardo Morin: Viewing of his Jersey City art-studio where he engages with his paintings [2005-10]; some artworks are in progress and some are part of a recently finished hanging scroll series, entitled Metaphors of Silence. http://www.ricardomorin.com/
*
Metaphors of Silence (2005–2010)
Studio Videography Transcript (Edited in Prose)
From 2005 to 2010, the work expands on questions dealing with perspective, synthesizing concepts of pictorial space and infinity that have been present over the years. Painterly abstraction and plasticity are allowed to express, both in form and in content, a kind of art that moves beyond a material world of signs.
The paintings reach toward the infinite, toward mystery, and toward the poetry present in each individual drama. Although situated within twentieth-century aesthetics, the work does not align itself with a specific historical movement or with a postmodernist agenda. Making art is approached as a fleshy product of human experiencing, a result of the maker’s own passion.
The idiosyncrasy of the individual, indivisible in nature and blind to causality, is held within an aesthetic frame that embraces all essences. The image appears as a residue: non-objective, timeless, and at times existential. It does not seek to explain experience. Rather, it manifests itself and invites interpretation from the observer.
The finished work stands on its own. The viewer may come away with the sense of a generative completeness, as if a universe were making and remaking itself.
“Metaphors of Silence” suggests that the verbalization of aesthetic reality implies its own ending. No matter how precise, words resist the magnitude of that reality. The actuality of art may remain unseen if it arises within a fragmented spirit, shaped by formulas, gratification, or condemnation.
Art is not sustained by the prejudices of the observer, nor by the need to attract attention through eccentric stimuli. It is found instead in the open space of silence, in the stillness of meditative contemplation, and in the freedom to observe without the control of the observer.
In that state of heightened attention, questions become unnecessary and responses diminish the act of observation. This aesthetic is not derived from accumulated experience, from association with the past, from the search for an audience, or from the demands of a prevailing market.
These currents are not governed by awareness or unawareness. They do not pursue fulfillment, nor do they arise from vanity or choice. They are manifestations common to all, defining what exists beyond ideas and words. They operate creatively without dependence on the noise of knowledge and remain outside measurement and classification.
Within that obscurity, a vital energy unfolds, moving beyond limitation and isolation. Creation appears as a process of awakening and renewal within every relation. To participate in the movement of life requires a continuous release from conditioning.
The creative act is not an accumulation of knowledge. The figure of the “creative genius” marks only a stage within the process of deconditioning, and it cannot become knowledge if confined to individuality. The eye, bound to duration, may seek moments of inspiration, but those moments do not constitute creation itself.
Creation occurs in that which reaches beyond the moment toward continuity.
In this relation to art, the aim is not self-fulfillment, but the expression of an underlying interconnectedness.
Ricardo F. Morin. November 24, 2010, Jersey City, NJ
*
Metaphors of Silence (2005–2010) by Ricardo F. Morín
Studio Videography Raw Transcript
0:07
From 2005 to 2010, my work expands on questions dealing with perspective,
0:14
synthesizing concepts of pictorial space and infinity, something I have worked on over the years.
0:23
I have allowed painterly abstraction and plasticity to express, both in form and in content,
0:29
a kind of art that goes beyond a material world of signs.
0:38
My paintings reach for the infinite, the mystery, and the poetry in every man’s individual drama.
0:44
Though immersed in twentieth-century aesthetics,
0:52
I neither strive for a specific historical movement nor for the postmodernist agenda.
1:01
Simply, I look at making art as a fleshy product of human experiencing,
1:08
a resultant of the maker’s own passion.
1:15
Just as the idiosyncrasy of an individual, indivisible in nature, is blind to causality,
1:25
an aesthetic frame embraces all essences,
1:32
and the image is only the result or residue non-objective, timeless, or even existential.
1:40
In this sense, the image seeks not to explain what the meaning of experience is;
1:48
rather, the image manifests itself, provoking interpretation from the observer.
1:56
The finished work stands on its own.
2:06
The viewer comes away, I hope, with the sense of the work’s generative completeness,
2:15
of a universe making and remaking itself.
2:23
Metaphors of Silence.
2:31
The verbalization of an aesthetic reality implies its own death.
2:38
No matter how precise, the very accuracy of words resists the magnitude of that reality.
2:46
Seeing the actuality of art may never take place
2:53
if born in a spirit fragmented by the illusion of formulas,
3:01
immured by gratification or condemnation.
3:08
Art is not sustained by the avarice of a prejudiced observer,
3:16
nor is it derived from eccentric stimuli meant to draw attention to itself.
3:23
It is found in the open space of silence,
3:32
in the stillness of meditative contemplation,
3:40
in the freedom to observe without the control of the observer.
3:48
With heightened attention, questions become unnecessary,
3:56
and responses trivialize the act of observation.
4:03
This aesthetic is not the product of experience,
4:11
nor the association with the past,
4:19
nor the search for an audience,
4:27
nor the product of a prevailing market.
4:34
These currents are not aware or unaware;
4:43
they do not propagate fulfillment,
4:50
nor are they the product of egotistic or vain ritual.
4:57
They are manifestations common to all of us,
5:06
that which defines us beyond ideas and words,
5:14
that which operates creatively without dependence on the noise of knowledge,
5:23
that which is not suited to measurement or labels.
5:45
Within obscurity, a vital energy unfolds beyond isolation.
Creation is the awakening and renewal present in every relation.
If we are to join in the movement of life,
freeing ourselves from conditioning is a continuous creative process.
The creative genius is only a stage in the deconditioning of the self,
which cannot become true knowledge if confined within individuality.
The eye, bound to duration, may seek moments of inspiration,
but such moments are not part of the act of creation.
Creation belongs to that which reaches beyond the moment toward continuity.
In this relation to art, I do not seek self-fulfillment,
but express the interconnectedness of humanity.
Acknowledgments:
David Lowenberger,
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986),
Carlo Giuseppe Soarés (1892–1976).
“Acts of Individual Talent”
October 2, 2009
Origins of Modern Western Aesthetics
The concept of Aesthetics comes to us out of a wide variety of different traditions: from those of the West, the Chinese, the Japanese, the African, the Polynesian, and so forth. The Western traditions, of course, have different qualities from the others with regards to origins, to evaluative criteria, either in opposing or defending approaches to the making of art.
From its beginnings Western aesthetic theory has developed in parallel with art criticism. The concept, however, of Aesthetics, but not the word, was first talked about by Joseph Addison (1672–1719), in a series of essays in The Spectator in 1712, as a “pleasure that is derived from the imagination.” Thus, pleasure forms the basis that will serve as the foundation of modern aesthetics. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62) most likely read Addison, and he sought to define Aesthetics as a science of that which is sensed or imagined in his master’s thesis Aesthetica, 2 Vol. (1750-58) at the Royal Prussian University in Halle. He coined the word for the German language; Aesthetics is derived from the New Latin aesthetica (the feminine adjective), and it is related to the Greek aesthetikos/aestheta (perceptible things) and related to the verb aesthetai (to perceive). Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), however, took issue with aesthetics as a science. [1] Nonetheless, the term remained controversial, and it was not until much later in the 19th century when it was finally accepted in academic circles.
Aesthetics is a specific valuation theory, or a distinct convention of what beauty is. It is an individualizing characteristic or a particular taste for, or an approach to, what is of interest to the intellect or pleasing to the senses: both visual or auditory (as in literature, the plastic arts, architecture, and music). By extension, the term Aesthetics may be applied to many varieties of human behavior—toilette, cosmetology, interior design, and so forth.
For the avant-garde Aesthetics and Originality can be at odds with established social or political norms. Aesthetics, as valuation, is normative. Art criticism is the way in which the norms are established. Art criticism is transmitted both to collectors and to institutions (e.g., museums, in the case of the plastic arts and the marketplace, in the case of music and architecture).
Although art criticism dates from antiquity, analyses of visual aesthetics or the plastic arts began as a journalistic effort. The art critic and the artist became mutually dependent, and what had once been new and refreshing by the closing of the 20th century, became academic, routine, and repetitive. Contemporarily, Harold Bloom (1930–2019) expressed that art criticism had become confused with questions of social justice and politics, and was no longer about the art product itself. [2]
Nothing, however, is really new; the concept of Aesthetics itself, as a means of expression, may be said to be a dominant force dating as far back to the origins of human cave paintings. At the turn of the 21st century, there no longer seems to exist an adherence to one current aesthetic or approach; art criticism now appears to evoke a wide variety of tendencies of the formal, moral, social, and spiritual.
In the following excerpt, “Confessions of an ever emerging visual artist” from a YouTube and WordPress-audio-visual Manifesto entitled “Metaphors of Silence” (2010), I have given my own point of view:
The usage which the visual arts serve is a complex demonstration of varying dimensions whose expression seeks not to explain meaning but to express its intent; to bring about a clearly independent act of interpretation, over which the artist exerts no control as creator. From this, arises the sublimity of the psychological condition that is partly visual delight and partly passion that renews and nourishes a spirit of partnership with the medium. The intent expresses one is what one perceives: i.e., it is a quality of energy and a temperament independent of the intellect, separate from the craft itself, and apart from the residue of the images. [3] [4]
Endnotes
[1] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), Introduction, §§1–5. (Kant does not reject “aesthetics” outright; rather, he rejects Baumgarten’s project of establishing aesthetics as a science: scientia).
[2] Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 17–35. (Bloom argues that literary—and by extension artistic—criticism has shifted toward ideological frameworks—Marxism, feminism, historicism, etc—and that these approaches prioritize social and political concerns over aesthetic value; as a result, the evaluation of the work itself is displaced.)
[3] Manifesto: Metaphors of Silence (https://rfmorin.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/metaphors-of-silence/)
[4] Autobiographical Statement: Ricardo Morin – Art – Paintings and Watercolors (http://ricardomorin.com/Statement.html)
Acts of Individual Talent
A harmful but enticing, state of affairs develops in the visual arts when the ethnocentric-artists align themselves with the adjuncts to commerce and their proxies (commercial institutions and art dealers on the one hand, and foundations and curators on the other), all of whom serve as instruments of indoctrination and publicity for the dictation of style, theme, and content, and in giving markets: The entertaining ‘circus’ of mass culture.
The Zeitgeist of multidisciplinarity and the crossing of frontiers seek to justify the relevance of the visual arts—in its sales and resales—through their contortions of its contextualization and validation of its avant-gardism. The study of the methodological principles of aesthetic interpretation gauges the importance of the arts and its place in the world of gimmickry and fashion, which are far removed from the dynamics of its origins. As such the visual arts find themselves in approximation with the modalities of narrative but expressed in the language of commerce. The artist now is succumbing to an ethos of expanding academic sophistry (the parcels-for-sale of commercial art history and the critics from the mass media). The result is not so much a lack of insight but a desperate impulse to cultivate greed and to strive for status; this indication of a bourgeois, sentimental enlightenment and authority avert any negation notions of a therapeutic or hobby genre: as anything other than menial and disenfranchised dilettantism for dabblers of artistic pursuit.
And so it is that the ensuing adaptation of analytic discourses into politics, philosophies, semiotics, linguistics, psychologies, and mathematics outline the obvious while absorbing the seeds of self-destruction. In other words, the universal urge of a visual necessity finds itself transmogrified into commercial success. Self-expression compares to commodification: Personal fulfillment is to be equated with making money. Can we suppose this mercantilism arises out of the Genre paintings of the 17th century (petit genre: still-life, flora and fauna, landscape, and scenes from the lives of the middle-class) with the emerging power of the bourgeoisie being able to decorate their homes with this style of painting? With a still bleaker legacy, these merchants of taste and consumerism seem to have missed the point that one’s perception of an image cannot be replaced by its description. To do so is to replace a jargon—piece of gossip with the visual intent. As visual meaning derives from internal intent, an encoded tag for a work of art can never replace the joy of experiencing it. Art is a manifestation of observation; as such, it is basically immeasurable. Passion and quality of energy need not require explanation, or, in particular, its manifestation should not be interpreted either for its worth or for its valuation—or enrichment—of a given elite. [1]
Ultimately, there is a tendency on the part of any artist in his/her approach to consolidate the supremacy of their egos and minds, with the verbal and the visual in a hieratic creative process; at this very moment this rationalization extinguishes both probability and logic (in other words, it becomes dead!). The lame allusions to the Conceptual, self-aggrandizing conceits, or to the simplistic Kitsch of popular iconographies—biases turned into cliché—to the orientation of Gender or Identity—affirmations of self-discovery—, or to the flaunting of Geo-Environmental Installations—with their fixed dimensional constants, all fall short of their promise to deliver something new or important: Declarations of approval, however, abound.
Many of today’s mainstream artists mythologize uprooted specimens derived from the trivial and the prosaic. Coming from a world we know about and live in, instead of a world we don’t know yet; these agents celebrate derivatives of tyrannical forms of erudition. Rather than enhancing our sense of perception, they extend an alienation that comes out of ambition and ownership, and make ubiquitous the desire for the object, which surrounds our ordinary lives. This gregariousness and massive consumerism disconnects and puts us to sleep in a technological era of purveyors of everything except sensitivity and human interconnectivity.
Collectors, museums, and galleries—today’s greedy usurpers of culture—welcome the glitz by which they turn art into a commodity and their power as plutocrats to satisfy the ignorance created by their Circensian parade of market indices. By definition the mythomania of stardom promotes only the few; every selection of one is a rejection of many [The Rise of the Meritocracy]. [2] The result of complacency fuels the alienation of 90% of active artists and creates therein an artificial shortage of resources, thus giving value to those market indices which ultimately result in the excessive struggle for survival. Rather than art giving strength to the collective unity, a sense of sectarianism separates everyone into a race of competing ideologies over commerce. The truth of art is left to search among competing opinions over what is relevant. These unstable times of ours, of victimizers and victims, of plunderers and the exploited repeat themselves in the annals of history.
Conformity, indifference, defining ourselves by the supremacy of personal success obscure inquiry on the disadvantaged. It is an empty gesture for one to defend the free market progress in the arts of today, or of any other given period. There have been innumerable artists whose accomplishments did not depend on a resplendent financial support or an irrefutable explication of competing narratives; sometimes, their ultimate measure of accomplishment came about despite the obstacles they had to endure—as well as the mores and instability of cultural vanities which opposed them. Their works may have come to have a great deal of recognition either towards the end of their lives (as in the case of a Paul Cézanne, who preempted 20th-century Modernity throughout his first forty years of obscure labor before landing a first one-man-show); or after their deaths (as in the case of Vincent Van Gogh, recognized for his sublimely “outsider” creations): When the capricious dictates of fashion made them relevant. And then, there are those who lose or regain their relevance, as in the case of François Boucher during the French Revolution, whose reformulation waited 100 years later until the end of the 19th century. In the same way, we have the banal chasing after the new in the late 20th century. And finally, there are those in 21st century who are first praised only to be soon forgotten.
The answer could be found by the rejection of a collector’s system of greed, or by the recognition that the quality of artistic creations cannot be pursued as a commodity. The answer cannot be found by their taxonomy. The answer is to be found in the recognition that any form of exploitation is undesirable and destructive to our collective being. The answer is to be found in the cultivation of all the arts, not as a commercial testimony of our sense of humanity.
If support for the arts were to be sought after, would we not need to assess the irrationality of our system of valuation, perhaps even our own cultural rationality?
Ricardo Morin
Editor, Billy Bussell Thompson.
Endnotes
[1] Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002). Extract: It is hard to recognize nascent art forms when they are on the rise, and by the time they are widely appreciated their best days are behind them—pp 400-410
[2] Michael Young, Rise of the Meritocracy, 1870-2033: The New Elite of Our Social Revolution (New York: Random House, 1959), p.12 [London: Thames & Hudson, 1958]. Young’s pejorative conception, set in a dehumanized [dystopian] future is based on the existence of a meritocratic class that monopolizes access to merit and the symbols and markers of merit, and thereby perpetuates its own power, social status, and privilege.
Observations On Perception 