(The Getty Center, 27 April 2013)
Advances in art come with advances in technology. Only the most successful adopters of novel technologies are remembered. Only the most confident in their own success venture to experiment and can afford to.
L.A. has had neither a Haussmann nor centuries of compression to mould a city. Its identity is not that of a city, but of individual ideas, which did not have to clash and form a consensus alien to each contributor. Instead, each dreamer got his way (e.g., got Anaheim, Venice, Disneyland, and the LAX Theme Building), neither hampered nor supported by a non-market arbiter of good taste and civic sense.
A museum in a city brings a respite from the mandate and gathers disparate individuals with shared tastes, whom one later learns to recognise unaided. The former role is largely obviated by L.A.'s natural beauty and eccentricity.
28 April 2013
21 April 2013
Clare Means
(The Third Street Promenade, 20 April 2013)
An artist cannot help being, and translating who he is into a narrative. If one finds aspects of beauty in oneself and translates these, one succeeds as an artist.
Few are artists. While some are tall buildings and fluid fabrics, others are merely a smooth gait, a wit, a reassuring profile. Nevertheless, most can find gratification in distilling a part of themselves into the beauty that can be passed on, onto the audience of strangers. One creates when the external narrative is either lacking or inspires a dialogue.
There is wisdom in being but a reporter---not a schemer, nor a moralist, nor a nostalgist---especially when one is of the age when one is supposed to be alive. One gets only one chance at being oneself, followed by numerous an opportunity for revising the account of what one used to be.
An artist cannot help being, and translating who he is into a narrative. If one finds aspects of beauty in oneself and translates these, one succeeds as an artist.
Few are artists. While some are tall buildings and fluid fabrics, others are merely a smooth gait, a wit, a reassuring profile. Nevertheless, most can find gratification in distilling a part of themselves into the beauty that can be passed on, onto the audience of strangers. One creates when the external narrative is either lacking or inspires a dialogue.
There is wisdom in being but a reporter---not a schemer, nor a moralist, nor a nostalgist---especially when one is of the age when one is supposed to be alive. One gets only one chance at being oneself, followed by numerous an opportunity for revising the account of what one used to be.
6 April 2013
Top Hat
(Aldwych Theatre, 2 April 2013)
A live performance assures that the memories evoked by music are real. This reality is shared, at least by few, in whom one sees those who one aspires to be or may become, or was or could have been. A live performance assures that also music is real, ready to reveal the humanity that transcends individuals once a critical mass of them assemble, on or off stage.
In an act of the division of emotional labour, the audience empathise with characters, thus inhabiting multiple lives at once. This practice is no escapism. Escapism denies one's condition. Empathy enriches one's condition.
A live performance assures that the memories evoked by music are real. This reality is shared, at least by few, in whom one sees those who one aspires to be or may become, or was or could have been. A live performance assures that also music is real, ready to reveal the humanity that transcends individuals once a critical mass of them assemble, on or off stage.
In an act of the division of emotional labour, the audience empathise with characters, thus inhabiting multiple lives at once. This practice is no escapism. Escapism denies one's condition. Empathy enriches one's condition.
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