You had to know one of these guys, which I did. Yes they were head on macho, but at least they were serious. It was precisely this attitude toward art that Warhol wasted for better or worse. That's the meaning behind a lot of Warhol. It was a good idea to begin with, but became a trivialization of art and it wore on and on.
I have a grudge, deep grudge, a life long grudge born in those years. It goes like this. In a decade of the Disasters of War, there was no art of the disaster. The social disasters kept building, but you would never know it looking at art history, or Artform.
We are living in a much larger disaster and from the elite art world as far as I can tell we get trivia. I gave up on the art world a long time ago. I wrote an essay about it to myself. It's buried in my journals from around 1980. I feel pretty much the same now as I did then. Fuck Art. Most art while I abstractly like some of it, and you Dennis have turned me on to some of best, the rest is dog shit. What I am struggling with is how to paint the world in words.
I am living in a temporary shelter at the end of my life and I want to see this world die from the bitterness of an old man. I am happy only when I see guys, thousand of guys in Cairo throw rocks, when I see revolt. I live vicariously in those struggles as the culmination of a wasted life serving the worthless bourgeoisie of America.
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon talking to J about her difficulties on the edge of her economic abyss. She is a temporary receptionist after the higher powers fired four out of five people (I am the fifth and still there). We shared about the abyss. I bought us a couple of hamburgers and gave her ten bucks for the bus, and some cigarettes.
How do I paint that? Maybe I'll take my camera to work and shoot portraits. Since I am near the street and meet the down and outters, I am seeing a world I only imagined in WPA photographs. ... Modern art looks like a big joke from where I am sitting at the moment.
CG