DJ

 

Suprise!  Looks like the DJ at Artica got his finger stuck in the wrong circuit. I don’t understand how these set-ups work, but then I do better with violins and clarinets and that sort of thing.              

AIRBORNE

 

Lots of children at Artica. The unseasonably warm weather (is that even worth mentioning any more?) encouraged them to tear all over the place. One father and daughter brought a large foam (I think) glider. The kid had a mighty hurl. The wings often fell off on landing but she would pop them back in and promptly relaunch.               

PARSING

 

An installation at Artica. Is the word trash here a noun or an adjective? Create art made of trash, or elevate trash into art? There is a long, complicated history about this question over the last century or more. Think of Marcel Duchamp and Louise Nevelson, but the list could go on and on.                    

IT'S ARTICA!

It’s time for The Lou’s anything goes visual and performing arts festival, Artica. It takes place in a large empty field and adjoining streets amidst the post-industrial ruins near the Mississippi. My friend Paul Vandivort sets the political tone for the weekend. Not a MAGA hat in sight.                       

GENERATIONS

 

Okay, I’m old by most standards. Everybody knows about old people’s puzzlement with young people. ('Twas ever thus.) Still, I look at these four and think about questions of class, culture, privilege and society. I was roughly their age in the geologic era known as the 1970s. I spent the first part of it as a cheaply dressed, if not ragged, graduate student. My three sibs did about the same. We were not wealthy but our parents insisted on education and we did what was expected, ending up with four bachelor’s degrees, a J.D., a Ph.D. and an M.B.A. 

For the rest of that decade, thanks in no small part to the woman who kept us financially afloat early on, I wore cheap suits, then better suits, and had a couple of kids. We bought a station wagon. I forgot I had read Jack Kerouac but then read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. I would have loved to have sat down and talked to these young people about their lives, but I was out cruising for images.