Art Heals: Walking

I  have just discovered that in my semi-quarantine,  I share space (well, head space) with the greats.  To wit, Nietzsche, Thoreau and Simone de Beauvoir (you go, girl).  What do we have in common?  Walking. These thinkers were traipsers, strolling or ambling or moseying along on a daily basis.  According to Thoreau

“ I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend  four hours a day…sauntering through woods and over…hills and fields.”  Four hours.  Um, I did read that he also walked to his mother’s house every day from the woods for meals, so I guess he had a  little more time on his  hands than most of us. But still, it is known that walking releases dopamine and serotonin and lowers cortisol, creating a chemical cocktail that fuels creativity.  Problems get solved as you pace, ideas blossom as you ramble.  For some, walking is integral to the religious experience.  The rituals of the Hajj involve walking.  Pilgrims and modern-day seekers of truth walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, finishing at least 100 km of its 780 km length in order to receive a compostela, the certificate stating you completed the pilgrimage.  (A shorter Good Friday pilgrimage from Santa Fe, New Mexico (28 miles) also draws thousands of walkers.)  I have a dear friend who walked the Spanish one,  fighting blisters and fatigue; she  told me it was one of the most important healing moments of her life.  For me, walking was never a part of my life until recently, and then, the healing part meant stopping for a meal or a glass of wine along the way.  Having sold my car upon my decampment to the city, I found myself on moving feet more often, but public transport was my friend, and I hardly had time to walk as a pastime—it was utilitarian, a way to get things done.  Enter Covid19.  Time became an endless dark tunnel with few exits toward the light.  Take it, spend it, waste it,  it was there all the time.  I had a lot of time.  I also had back pains from sitting in my uncomfortable chair hunched over this laptop, and the gym in my building was closed. (Who am I kidding here—I never went the gym.)   As the disembodied heads of humans swam in front of my eyeballs, I began to long to see other body parts –arms, legs, feet.   Shoes!  I wanted to see shoes.  So off I went, creating a 5-pm ritual of an hour’s  walk in my neighborhood.   I read that walking outdoors improves your mood more than doing the same on a treadmill (dreadmill, in my lexicon) because of the healing effects of nature, but being an urban girl,  I found the trees and flowers merely a backdrop to the more interesting aspects of my walk—the outfits!  Sadly, for me, as the weather warms, sartorial splendor devolves into semi-nudity (don’t they get sunburn,  or bug bites?) but of course sometimes a truly noble specimen of humanity passes by, compensating for the lack of clothing.  And there are still arms and legs and shoes for me to examine, and yes, pass judgement upon.  Aside from all these delights, I began to notice that my thought processes seemed to be following my feet; a brisk walk supported crisper thinking.  I began to get ideas! Poetry in motion does not only describe dancers, it is a metaphor for the way movement stimulates the  mind.  The better I felt, the longer the walks got.  Four hours happens on a regular basis now.   I am still stuck with making the meals afterwards, though, having no Mrs. Thoreau to free up my time.  But hey, as I said, I have lots of time.

Adnan Charara,  wish he were walking with me.  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Fathers

I have a little collection of penguins. Glass, wood, porcelain.  You know how that goes—you  buy one and a friend sees it and suddenly everyone is giving you penguins until they take over your bookshelves and eventually find their way into a box at the back of the closet.  But whenever Father’s Day comes around, I think about penguins.  One in particular,  the male emperor penguin. After the female of the pair lays her egg, she passes it to the male, who balances it on his feet, tucked under a pouch of skin, to keep it warm in the Arctic cold.  The female then leaves to forage for food.  Father penguin stands with that egg on  his feet for up to 64 days.

I think about this because my favorite memory of my late father is, when I was little, maybe about 6 or 7,  he would place my feet on his feet, and dance with me.  Music was informal in our house.  My father played what we called the mouth organ, which I later learned was a harmonica, loosely translated from the German.  His prized possession was a record player, that played the large format LPs. Every Christmas and birthday a new record would appear.  Italian and German popular songs, later in English (“Volare” was a big hit), musicals.  We would take it with us on our annual vacation from Chicago to a cabin we rented every year on a small lake in Wisconsin.  There  my dad would play music while he made gnocchi and ravioli by hand in the kitchen; I rounded up the kids my age from neighboring cabins to watch and assist in kneading the dough amidst clouds of flour. 

As I grew older, I spent less time with him—he worked long hours and had a 2-hour each-way commute.  I later learned that he put in the extra hours in order to get the Christmas bonus and various productivity awards, which were used to buy us holiday gifts.  During high school and college summers, he got me a  job at his company, and we commuted together.  My mother was talkative, especially in the morning—my dad and I were taciturn, not speaking at all during breakfast and the morning car ride.  But the afternoon  ride home was lively, as we discussed the doings of the day.  The company was located in the south side of Chicago, and provided my first introduction to African Americans. (I later learned that all my black supervisors in those years had been promoted to their positions by my father—black supervisors being a rarity in those days.) The office I worked in had about 50 desks, each occupied by a woman with an electric adding machine rapidly calculating strings of numbers all day long.  Rapidity was valued, and  I tried my best, but in my zeal I  blew up the  machine, setting the paper tape on fire.  The next summer I was given a different job. By now my dad had risen in the company, and had  access to the Executive Dining Room.  Once a  summer I was allowed to invite one of my co-workers to dine with him there. (I later learned that along with promoting African Americans, he also integrated the Executive Dining Room.  And many years later, he told me about the prejudices he himself had to overcome, suspicions about his accent and his Egyptian background.)  He really wasn’t a talker, especially not about himself.  Later when I moved away, when I would call and he answered the phone, there was a quick hello and then “I’ll get your mother.”  But we had good talks in the car when he picked me up from the train, and later from the airport.  Maybe he remembered the commutes.   I have lots of other great memories—parties in the yard where he recreated the Nile river and the pyramids,  an every-year birthday cake he baked that was a hazelnut torte with seven layers, each fragile section spread upon the bottom of a springform pan. 

Every father-child relationship is unique.  Every father expresses himself  in his own way.  But each balances his  children on his feet as best he can.  Happy Father’s Day.

This is Father and Son, by Zahi Khamis.  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Red

“I advise students on the subject of color as follows: If it looks good enough to eat, use it,” said artist Abe Ajay. Strawberries, summer tomatoes, red peppers.  Yum.  Yes, I know “seeing red” can mean uncontrollable anger, but more often, red has been associated with love, courage, revolution.  Scientists have found that of all colors, red evokes the strongest reaction; thus, warnings, stop signs, the “scarlet letter,” ecclesiastical robes, flags, even wedding garments in other cultures. Red is one of the first colors used by artists—red ochre was used as body paint in the late Stone Age, and Paleolithic cave paintings were done in red, the color easily obtained in nature.  Fun fact:  traces of red ochre were found on a painter’s palette in King Tut’s tomb!   Chinese created vermilion, brought to Europe by Arabs, became popular with Renaissance artists like Titian.  The pigment, known as Chinese red, was as expensive as gold leaf.  It remained the most popular red through the 20th century, but its toxicity and expense encouraged artists to switch to cadmium red.  Nature, hand in hand with artists, evolved many hues—cinnabar, crimson, carmine (from the cochineal insect, Spanish conquistadors taking it from the Aztecs.  Ultimately it was most associated with Rembrandt and Vermeer.  Colonialism and appropriation from the earliest days. 

As a curator, I am sensitive to color, as the red wall in my gallery (even mentioned in The Washington Post) attests. In my personal life, I go with black most of the time, but when asked, I always say my favorite color is red. I’ve often wondered why most people seem to have a “favorite.” An article by R. Douglas Fields Ph.D. in Psychology Today suggests “Color preferences are deeply rooted emotional responses that seem to lack any rational basis.” “But is ...color preference hard-wired by evolution or learned? Interestingly, the researchers found that Japanese color preferences were different from American preferences, suggesting a cultural influence on color preference.” Choice of color can be seen as an aggressive act, wearing all black is sometimes interpreted as sinister, the choice of a rebel (black motorcycle jackets being an emblem of “rebel cool” in American culture). Others see it as simply chic (the famous “black uniform” of New York women). It can also be practical, as is mentioned in a book, “Life Among the Poor in Cairo.” Women of all classes living in the same Cairo neighborhood chose to wear black garments (sometimes covering a more colorful one underneath). This made it possible to “level the playing field” of fashion, as cheaper materials can be perceived to be similar to expensive fabrics, at least from a distance. Me, I see both black and red as neutrals, providing background to the statement I wish to make, both in my personal choices and as a curator. I’ve had the red wall for many years now. Originally, I painted it to showcase a particular set of paintings about the Arab Spring. Since then, every painting I have installed there looks as if it were made for the wall. (Admission: I’ve unearthed my old school textbooks on color theory just to be sure.) But in many ways, the background becomes the foreground, in art and in life.  We all make choices in how to present ourselves to the world, whether in clothing or in art. Color provides non-verbal cues to our emotions, or sense of self, and the messages we wish to impart.  So, if black is your happy place, good for you. And if you choose to splatter rainbow hues like Jackson Pollack, hurrah. The philosopher Marshal McLuhan (anyone remember him?) famously said, “The medium is the message.” Art Heals.

This is Zahi Khamis’s Forbidden on the red wall.

Art Heals: Deep Sea Diving

Many years ago, I found myself on a rice barge in the Chao Phraya river in Thailand, watching a diver suit up.  He was about to enter the somewhat turgid waters to search for ancient Chinese porcelain supposedly left in the hull of a sunken ship. (While the pottery was indeed Chinese, it was neither ancient nor porcelain, but it was an outing on the river and that was enough for my enjoyment.)  As part of the atmospherics, the diver encased himself in an impressive 1830s-style diving suit featuring a copper helmet bolted to a canvas onesie, the latter attached to rubber boots.  Heavy gloves strapped to the suit completed the outfit. The diver then plunged vertically into the water, and we counted the surface bubbles as we awaited with bated breath (well, with snacks and fizzy drinks) his triumphant return, hoisting a blue and white pot in his upraised fist. Treasure!

So, the other day I had several errands to run.  At my advanced age, I take the quarantine seriously, so venturing out of my apartment requires some zealous loin girding.  I started to suit up.  Pants, long sleeves, outdoor-only shoes.  Wash hands. Don mask, carefully positioned to cover all facial orifices. Reposition my glasses so the mask fits under, not over, my eyes.  Reposition mask again to keep glasses from fogging up.  Don disposable gloves. Place second pair of disposable gloves in pocket, to wear in case first pair are contaminated.  Breathe deeply. Plunge vertically (6^th floor elevator) into the waters of the outside world to hunt for treasure (yes, of course, Pringles). 

I’ve always had a lively imagination, but the corona chaos has turned me into a royal thespian (read: drama queen).  Information overload has severely affected my discernment gene.  Risk assessment, fact vs. fiction, reality vs. exaggeration; I can no longer tell, so I err on the side of over-caution.  My deep dive into the waters of commerce is giving me the bends.  I think many of us are suffering from this decompression sickness.  The pressures of lockdowns have built up over these months, and we long for release.  Surfacing too quickly can lead to fatigue, dizziness, confusion, serious illness.  But surface we must.  I need to slow down, conquer fear with facts, and emerge gradually from the waters of Babylon.

I didn’t have to dive for these fish. Contemporary art in Australia. Art Heals.

Art Heals: Gimme Shelter

“Oh, a storm is threat’ning

My very life today

If I don’t get some shelter

Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away”

Thanks, Rolling Stones.

The thing about a great song is, we hear it and absorb it and it matters not to us what the original impetus was; it serves us when we need it.

On my daily walks around the city, I can’t help but notice the proliferation of makeshift shelters for the homeless.  Jerry-rigged from cardboard and plastic sheeting, sometimes a bit more substantial in the form of pup tents, these dwellings define shelter in only the most rudimentary form.  These inadequacies are magnified by the strictures of shelter-in-place that coronavirus demands of us, strictures obviously unenforceable without basics like running water and sanitation, and a sturdy roof to keep out the rain.  How did we come to this? And doesn’t shelter have a greater meaning than just structures?

In prehistoric times, early man used the natural environment as shelter, trees and caves, later using stones and hides and tree branches in early construction.  Then came sun-dried bricks, used for hundreds of years by the ancient Egyptians, until the Assyrians improved upon this by baking them in fire and waterproofing them with a glazing process. Greeks and Romans advanced this construction with varied, stronger materials, and innovations such as central heating through underground pipes, leading to the concept of architecture.  The word architect comes from a compound Greek word meaning “to be the first,” “who commands” and “mason” or “builder.”   Thus, construction moved from the realm of basic shelter toward the realm of design and art, (to say nothing about the “starchitects” of today, whose work is often more in the realm of the theoretical than that of the practical.) At any rate, advances in technology moved shelter from personal agency to mass production. Sometimes the adaptations different cultures made to designs, fitting their habitat, climate and heritage needs, were adopted on a larger scale.  Too often, a more dominant culture imposed its own designs, devaluing and ultimately destroying indigenous solutions.

And with urbanization, shelter expanded to include shared social spaces. Small apartments meant more time spent outside the dwelling; cafes became substitute living and dining rooms.  Lack of gardens in tiny townhouses meant recreation in public parks.  Successful urban streetscapes took into account the need for benches to rest weary feet, and public toilets for those away from their homes.  As populations increased in urban areas, seeking employment and educational opportunities, inequities, racism, financial inequalities and greed began to affect shelter, both private and public.   Some of us have a lot; many of us have very little; some of us have none.

Which brings me to my second thought about the meaning of shelter.  To shelter is to offer comfort, to provide a place of refuge, for the soul and the spirit as well as the body. Being socially distant means the public spaces where we meet each other, the extensions of our dwellings, are no longer open to us, increasing our loneliness and social isolation.  Spending days and months inside our homes, we feel as if those homes are shrinking;  our privileged architecture of designated spaces ( here we cook, here we eat, here we recreate, here we sleep) morphs into crowded multi-use office/school/playroom/kitchen/gym/therapy couch.  Hard to control the clutter, hard to meet varying needs of time and space and occasional silence.  Our shelters are no longer always sheltering.  Which should lead us to empathy.  It only takes a moment to envision ourselves navigating these all too familiar tensions in the space of a four by six-foot pup tent with only a hand-washing station shared by dozens.  There are many calls upon our compassion these days.  Sheltering, emotionally, physically, financially, is creating the architecture of humanity.

Here is Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s “House and Home.”  Art Heals.

Art Heals: Canis Familiaris

Hev, hev; guau, guau; wau wau; gav, gav; wan wan; bau bau; blaf blaf; ouaf,ouaf; * That’s woof woof to us English speakers.  I was doing my usual weekend walk-a-thon when I started thinking about dogs.  Thinking about dogs in DC, even if you haven’t got a dog of your own to think about, is pretty much ubiquitous.  Because the dogs are. Ubiquitous. And because I see art in everything, I am acutely aware of the role dogs play in the urban streetscape. In his sociological treatise, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman talks about the “maintenance of front,” a concept Italians call “bella figura.”  DC dogs take the art of self-presentation seriously. They trot, prance, lope, wearing their scarves, bow ties, and headgear with a seriousness of mien and aplomb that belies the somewhat unorthodox choices of apparel in which they appear.  Like the ID badges sported by the seriously connected (read: everybody) dogs confer identity to their owners/caregivers.  Before our forced isolation, our work and social lives were dog-linked.  We saw them hang around WeWork offices.  Judiciously partake of water and treats left for them by fawning businesses.  Patrol happy hour hotspots.  And confer upon their owners the status so necessary for DC happiness.  But now they have climbed up a few more steps on the happiness ladder, into the sphere of wellness.  We are all aware of the health benefits of having a companion animal.  Cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and even geese can lower blood pressure and cortisol levels and increase dopamine and oxytocin.  But just now dogs are in the lead (as they prefer to be).  The lockdown has increased loneliness, anxiety, and the physical health risks that arise from stress and lack of exercise.  Dogs’ presence can ameliorate these conditions in unique ways.  People in isolation suffer from touch deprivation, mitigated by petting a dog.  And unlike the cat or the guinea pig (well, maybe not the goose) dogs need to be walked.  Even if you have a garden with a convenient doggie door, they still need to be walked.  They need to be fed, (even though some have mastered the “open the fridge, get me a beer” trick, they still can’t pour the kibble into their bowls).  All of these needs provide their human companions with exercise and structure, especially needed in these days of quarantine fog.  Pet those pets and you will soon be vacuuming the couch and throwing away all your black pants.  A walk around the block becomes a marathon of stopping and starting and sniffing and greeting other canines whose straining on the leash creates a social distancing quandary.   Throw a ball or a stick more than twice and you find yourself enrolled in the doggie world series, with you as the pitcher and extra innings on the board.  And one walk is never enough.  That animal sits by the door with the clear message, “hey, you are home, what else do you have to do except take me out?”   As the oldest domesticated species, (the earliest undisputed dog, buried beside humans over 14,000 years ago, was found  near my home town!) dogs have had plenty of time to develop the ability to communicate with and understand us humans, meaning manipulate us into giving them treats, of course.  And how do they do this?  With a unique developmental adaptation.  They look at us.  That gaze, that melting stare, that beseeching eye, is irresistible at the best of times.  But now, as we live in a world of masks and social distancing and lack of eye contact and fear of the other, that eye to eye gaze is comforting and healing and oh so necessary.  Next time you are out, whether you have a dog of your own, or are just out for a walk, interact with a dog, (properly caninely-distanced, of course).  Dogs heal.

*translation: Turkish, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, French

Art Heals: Power

As we hope for systemic changes effectuated by the recent and ongoing protests for justice and racial equality, we do know that the protests will enter the history books.  And I am happy to know that the Smithsonian Institution is collecting and preserving the signs and posters and artwork that give visual power to the movement.  Art has the power to illuminate injustice and spur social change.  And that power belongs to all of us, those who make art and those who are inspired by it.  I have long written and talked about mural art and graffiti art, which have become mainstream, whether in a pavilion in the Venice Biennale or in the fame of the artist-provocateur Banksy.   The latest powerful images I saw protestors making and carrying stood out in my mind because they were so personal and original.  I didn’t see the pre-printed posters, professionally designed, distributed in advance of many earlier protests.  People took their broken hearts and made it into art.  Thinking about all this made me remember an important exhibition I curated some years ago and of a small art-world controversy that reminds me why some daubs of paint can carry so much weight.   Let me tell you about that, with a little digression into history.

A few years ago, in the sometimesrarified world of art and artists, there emerged a controversy that I think served to illustrate a greater truth. World-famous (and rich) artist Sir Anish Kapoor acquired the exclusive rights to a type of carbon-based pigment called Vantablack, “the blackest shade of black ever made,” according to numerous published articles. Without trying to explain the arcane science behind this pigment (which is actually not exactly paint, but tiny tubes of carbon that need to be applied wearing a gas mask), suffice it to say that the substance is so light-absorbing that the human eye cannot look at it and distinguish the kind of shadows which help the brain to interpret shapes. The example shown in all the reports is that of a crumpled piece of tin foil covered with a layer of the pigment. You cannot see any shapes—the foil appears flat.  Addressing the furor regarding Kapoor’s exclusive rights to Vantablack, artist Christain Furr commented “This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it. It isn't right that it belongs to one man.”

For a little art-historical perspective (before we get to the social justice part of this commentary) artists throughout the centuries have tried to monopolize or be associated with particular colors. A blue pigment made from lapis lazuli, only found in Afghanistan, was once highly prized and exorbitantly priced. Eighteenth century painters like Joshua Reynolds paid enormous fees to use a deep black paint called “Titian’s shade.” In 1960 the French artist Yves Klein patented a vibrant blue forever known as “International Klein Blue” (but he did not keep it for his exclusive use.) *

Thinking back on this, and seeing the protest posters bravely held aloft against military riot shields, I was reminded of an exhibition I held called “Forbidden Colors.”  I asked artists to consider the use of color both objectively as a way of arousing certain feelings in both artist and observer, and metaphorically exploring artists’ responses to various forms of censorship or political pressure. The show took its name from a 1980 Israeli law forbidding art of "political significance," which in effect banned artwork composed of the four colors of the Palestinian flag: red, green, white and black. Palestinians were arrested for making or displaying such artwork. The ban was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The significance of this ban is enormous. I am often reminded of Picasso’s words, “Art is not made to decorate rooms. It is an offensive weapon in the defense against the enemy.” Red, green, white, black. Mere colors, colors that exist in the world, independent of human intervention, possessing such power that an authoritarian government seeks to ban their display! Color possessing such power that the mere sight of red, green, white, black, could incite riot, rebellion, demands for justice, hope, despair, nationalism, pride, love. Artists instinctively understand this power. They are willing to pay any price, make any sacrifice, to be able to penetrate the gaze and touch the soul with a dab of cerulean blue or the deepest black. And anyone who makes a poster, paints a portrait, draws a mural, illustrates a cartoon, picks up a pen or a crayon or chalks the sidewalk, possesses that power.  Art is a strong weapon in the fight for justice, for the rights of patrimony, peace, freedom. Art continues to hold our gaze; it forces us to look, and hopefully, to see. Protest is a right.  Expression is a right. Colors cannot be forbidden. My hope is that repressive regimes here and everywhere will look into that blackest black and see not the depths of despair but the infinite freedom that is the birthright of all humanity.  Art Heals.

*(For more on this subject, read “Color: A Natural History of the Palette” by Victoria Finlay or “Blue: The History of a Color” by Michel Pastoureau.)

From the “Forbidden Colors” exhibition, this is Censored Memory, by Adam Chamy