I Hope

Sting and I are roughly the same age. I have a resonance with his music, especially his lyrics, that speaks to the times of my life. When I was at a Buddhist retreat program in 2000, he arrived by helicopter for a private meeting with the meditation master. 

There's No Such Thing As A Winnable War

This morning I was prompted by an app to listen to a new release by Sting. It brought me to tears. Again?

A Russian invasion of Ukraine. Endless wars in so many places. Endless killings. Why do we persist in this violent behavior? 

How is it that 47 years after this song was first released, we are still in the MAD* politics of state terrorism?

How does Sting, or anyone, maintain their hope to make a difference? How might we, yet again, step back from further bloodshed? How else might power play out? 

from Variety (and elsewhere)

A plea for our common humanity

... there's a growing feeling of hysteria

... How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?

... what might save us, me and you

 ???

Sting Website: https://www.sting.com/news/title/wwwhelpukrainecenteren

Donate/Volunteer for Ukraine - https://helpukraine.center/

New Release Audio - https://sting.lnk.to/Russians

New Release Video - https://youtu.be/6w3037nq23o

Hypar SIP Mobile

Larry Wolf, Hypar SIP Mobile (2022)

Larry Wolf, Hypar SIP Mobile (2022)

Larry Wolf, Hypar SIP Mobile (2022)

Celebrating sequences, iterations and permutations with the mathemagic of folded paper hyperbolic paraboloid approximations.

Hyde Park Art Center, April 23 - July 23, 2022 / Curated by Jasper Goodrich

Sometimes Art Sucks

Pamela Barsky, Sometimes Art Sucks. That's What Makes It So Important

Oscar yi Hou

Oscar yi Hou, Coolieisms, aka: Sly Son Goku, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.

Oscar yi Hou, Cowboy Kato Coolie, aka: Bruce’s Bitch, 2021.
Photo by Jason Mandella. Courtesy of the artist and James Fuentes.

Oscar yi Hou, Fire Snake of El Barrio, aka: Sunflower, 2021.
Photo by Jason Mandella. Courtesy of the artist and James Fuentes.

Oscar yi Hou, Forlorn fire-escape flowers, aka_ New York strings of life, 2020.
Photo by Jason Mandella. Courtesy of the artist and James Fuentes.

At Columbia, yi Hou critically examined the country’s nation-building myths and histories of westward expansion. Research into stories of cowboys and coolies fueled new threads in his paintings, which continue to be complicated by notions of desire and queer kinship. In school, yi Hou also became more critical of his intentions to paint underrepresented people, of what he described as “a simplistic representational politics.” He was questioning his role as a sort of spokesperson when he read about Trinh T. Minh-ha’s deliberate framework of “speaking nearby” rather than “speaking about.” The filmmaker’s approach to ethnography has since been a grounding ethos for his practice. “When I was first reading all these texts and encountering all these thinkers, I was like, ‘Shit, I’m not going to represent anyone ever again. Like, is this violent?’” yi Hou said. “Trinh T. Minh-ha was a lifejacket, a rubber ring.”

Artsy Editorial by Claire Voon, March 14, 2022

Oscar yi Hou

https://oscaryihou.com/

trinh t. minh-ha

http://trinhminh-ha.squarespace.com/

Voices Transformed

When I was in college, my friends loved my parents, thought them so supportive. I, on the other hand, felt like they were always in me, offering their uninvited opinions, that I was constantly navigating my desire to be my own person, to discover who I was, free of their comments, free of needing their acceptance. They represented the social norms. I was harboring an inner queer boy needing a place to revel in.

On the drive home from helping empty out my mother's apartment, in the bleak woods of western Pennsylvania along I-80, I had a glimpse that my parents, now both deceased, were newly a font of truly unconditional love. What a relief. What a blessing!

It is also true that each of them, in their final days, said things that were outside the push-pull of parents and children. My father told me that my work in the world was important. My mother told me how wonderful my latest zine was. Each from their perspective, an elder seeing me whole.

The parental voices in my head, that have haunted me since childhood, are transformed. They are now angelic, harps at a distance, not harpies attacking me, eating my liver. Like the woods along the road, they are the passing scenery, the non-specific mummer of a river, the stream of life. Mixed metaphors are about right. 

The future awaits.

Larry Wolf, Love (1992, linoleum block print on Valentine card)

Lost and Found

Larry Wolf, Treasure Box (2022)

Larry Wolf, Treasure Box (2022)

Larry Wolf, Treasure Box (2022)

This box of slides was believed lost. It was found while emptying out my mother's apartment. Soon they will be scanned. Family history reclaimed.

Too Much Coffee Not Enough Time

Emails with Stephen

Feels like too much coffee and not enough time these days. 

Remember when you used to ... 

Larry Wolf, Duffle (2017)

Ha.. I remember that guy...

... and our wonder filled time in San Francisco five (!) years ago ... planning for Courage Labs, the chat bot, Wisdom 2.0, morning practice sessions, walking and eating and living, discovering a book of essays by Rebecca Solnit in a neighborhood bookstore. Then flying off to a conference in Orlando.. all of that after a month on staff at a Karme Choling dathun.

Larry Wolf, Karme Choling 360 (2017)

I miss that guy.. I'm in a kind of mourning for him and his dreams.. 

Larry Wolf, Flying (2017)

While I play with color, shape and math magic

Larry Wolf, SIP Logo Hypar Permutations (2022)

Thanks for inviting that guy to the conversation

 

Upcoming Group Exhibition

Larry Wolf, SIP Hypar (2022)

Larry Wolf, SIP Hypar (2022)

Jasper Goodrich, SIP Logo (2022)

I'll be participating in a group show at the Hyde Park Art Center that is based on the work of artists in Jasper Goodrich's Sequences Iterations Permutations (SIP) program.

The exhibition runs from April 23 through July 24, 2022.

Some Further Variations

Larry Wolf, SIP Hypar (2022)

Larry Wolf, SIP Hypar In Process (2022)

Mom's Books

Larry Wolf, Mom's Books at My Home (2022)

From Mom's Apartment - Now at My Home

Franck - To Be Human Against All Odds

Handzeichnungen des Michelangelo (Michelangelo's Drawings)

Calder - Animal Sketching

Emil Nolde - Unpainted Pictures

A Collection of Drawings and Watercolors by Charles Demuth - Sotherby Parke Bernet - October 28, 1976

Burlingham - Twins, A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins with 30 Charts

The Family of Man (x2)

Brucke

Vincent Van Gogh - The Drawings

Basquiat - The Unknown Notebooks

Basquiat - Drawing

New Books

Larry Wolf, Today's Books (2022)

From Unabridged Books

Pádraig Ó Tuama - In the Shelter

Thich Nhat Hanh - The Other Shore

Bill Hayes - Sweat

Harvey Fierstein - I Was Better Last Night

From Mack Books

Sam Contis - Day Sleeper Dorothea Lange

Jess T. Dugan - Look at Me Like You Love Me

Numi Bridge

Larry Wolf, Bert Numi Bridge Design 1960s (2022)

Wolf, Numi
(2022)

This stringed structure was sitting in the back of the sculptor's studio, abandoned. He explained that it was a hyperbolic paraboloid, formed by running strings between two circles and then giving them a slight twist. I was transfixed. He said it was the turning point in his career when, submitted as the design for a bridge, he was told he was better suited for the arts. He offered it to me. I still have it some fifty-five years later. The slip of paper attached to the bottom surface with his name, Bert Numi, has long since disappeared.

I was in high school. It was an after school enrichment program, ostensibly art though also a throwback to the metal shop class I loved in seventh grade. I used an oxy-acetylene torch and an arc welder to create structures from junk yard steel. I rode in his MG-B with the top down. He told me about art happenings. Our lives went separate ways. I wonder where he is and what he's been doing.

Larry Wolf, Bert Numi Bridge Design 1960s (2022)

Marat

Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Paul Marat (1793)
Chateau de Versailles Collection

The Print

Jacques-Louis David, Marat as he was at the time of his death (1793)

Chateau de Versailles Collection

Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman Virtual Opening | Met Exhibitions

Met Museum Virtual Opening
(2022)

Met Museum Virtual Opening - Commentary on the Marat drawing and print begins at 16:28

Met Museum - Jacques-Louis David Radical Draftsman

My Introduction to Jean-Paul Marat and the Marquis de Sade

Marat/Sade
NY Production (1965-66)

Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (1964/1965-66 NY Production)

Seen on stage while in high school