Poem: "Untitled" (After Hugo McCloud, "Untitled")

As part of the poetry reading and discussion "Experimentation and the Black Aesthetic" at The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Art (MoCADA) in Brooklyn, organized by my Rutgers colleague and superlative poet and scholar Evie Shockley, and which included amazing poet-theorist-praxtitioner Dawn Lundy Martin and poet and multi-platform artist LaTasha N. Diggs, all four of us wrote new, short pieces in dialogue with/response to one work on display. Since I was on the panel and was unable to take photos, and was one of the participants, I thought I'd share my piece here, to give a flavor of what we were up to. All of us, it seems, chose a painting by Hugo McCloud. Rather than describe it, here's the artwork and what I wrote. Enjoy.

Hugo McCloud, "Untitled", block print series #2, aluminum coating,
 aluminum paper on tar, 60 x 60 inches, 2013.

(UNTITLED, AFTER HUGO MCCLOUD, "UNTITLED")

Silver: shimmer. Sheen as clamor. Calmer, stroking it with vision: the blackground. There is an answer ground into the black. Stroke by stroke, layer by layer. Texture, here in the place of mirror. Into the surface pace. To peer into the space of reflection, the under-surface. Crossing into the space of aporia. Enter it, beyond the sign. Eyeing the face of reflection, between answer and question. Resting momentarily on the surfacing shimmer. The fragile layer which emerges as identity. What stirs in the reflection of the tinseled plane. Pressing, silver limning an opening: seeing. Identities emerging: artist, other. Compress them. What is the absence that lies behind. What surfaces beneath the surface as the event of recognition. Fragile covering as soft as armor. See necessity. Touching discourse. Reflection and absence. Axial, scene. Stroking vision in the aluminum pane. Abstraction: letting go of the metaphor. To let go of the face and enter allegory. Catching the emblem, the flights of coral. The eye as an open road, letting it pass into you. The I as route into and under the inner worlds. What echoes of the idea lingering at the crossroads. Passing through. Lateral music, not literal. To appear in the debris, the unrecovered, mind it. To you, in order to face it. Through you, making it. Peering at the symbol, calling. Beneath the detritus the glittering space. Down into the black. The call that need not ever be concealed comes back. Listen: the noise as the music of a enduring absence under the surface. Calling all viewers. Only then can you know the seeping. In the blueblackground: let it flow.

Copyright © John Keene, 2013. All rights reserved.

Me reading at MoCADA (Evie Shockley on the left, LaTasha
Diggs on the far right. Photo © by David Barclay Moore)

Pattern Recognition: Reading/Panel @ MoCADA in BKYN Tonight!

If you are in or around Brooklyn this evening, drop by MoCADA to catch PATTERN RECOGNITION, an amazing exhibit of contemporary abstract art, and then stay for the reading and conversation I'll be participating in!

POETRY READING & DISCUSSION:

EXPERIMENTATION AND THE BLACK AESTHETIC

Friday, September 13

6:30-8:30PM | MoCADA

Evie Shockley, author of the new black and Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry, will join celebrated innovative poets LaTasha N. Diggs, John Keene, and Dawn Lundy Martin for a reading and discussion on craft, language, politics and the search for a “black aesthetic” in contemporary art. 

Seating is limited, please arrive early. Wine will be served and author books will be available in the MoCADA Shop. $3 contribution.

Bastille Day: Peskine at MoCADA + Phillies' Folly + 10 Years of Blogs

Since it's Bastille Day, here's info about something French--at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), in Brooklyn, from a press release I received (I'll get over there one of these days soon):

The French Evolution: Race, Politics & the French Riots
Works by Alexis Peskine
Curated by Kimberli E. Gant
May 25-September 9, 2007

The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is pleased to present The French Evolution: Race, Politics & Riots. The museum premier of this provocative exhibition features approximately fifteen multimedia images informed and inspired by the 2005 riots that rocked Peskine’s native Paris, and explores the social and political climate sustained by the uneasy truce that continues today. The exhibition will open with a reception on May 25th, and be on view through September 9th. Several educational programs have been created to complement the exhibition.

The twenty-seven-year-old Peskine, a Howard University and Maryland Institute College of Art alum and Fulbright scholar, is an emerging artist who has gained considerable recognition with his provocative interpretations on social inequality. Set against the backdrop of a global consciousness with strong influences of the worldwide hip-hop movement, Peskine’s work is informed by his experiences growing up with his peers of African, Arab and Caribbean descent in Paris, where random ID checks, joblessness, and racial and religious discrimination are an everyday reality. His images in video, photography and mixed media using wood, nails, canvas and installations reflect his graphic and bold approach to social, religious and political commentary through art.

Take that, Sarko!

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I have complained at times about the Saint Louis Cardinals, who're having a lackluster 2007 season (though they're not at the bottom of their weak division). At the same time, I'm quite aware that historically speaking, they have had their share of successes, to the extent that they're second only to the New York Yankees in total World Series wins, and managed to pull off a shocker last year after dragging themselves across the finish line into the playoffs.

Tonight, the Cardinals had their hand in a bit of infamy: they helped the Philadelphia Phillies notch their 10,000th loss. That is the most in Major League Baseball. Not even the Chicago Cubs, a study in futility, have as many losses. Nor do the Boston Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles (once the hapless Saint Louis Browns), the Chicago White Sox...you get the picture.

I only know the Phillies as having middling teams, sometimes good ones. Their roster included the nutty Hall of Famer Steve Carlton and the great Mike Schmidt, a prototypical third baseman, and they won the World Series in 1980, when I was in high school. That counts for something--the win, I mean. People with longer memories or a better handle on stats, however, know that they have had many, many bad seasons, from 1883 on. Some were awful, or worse. 1964 is particularly notorious, in that they fell out of first place with a 10-game losing streak or something to that effect, permitting the Cardinals--oh the ignominy!--to leap in, win the pennant, and defeat the Yankees, in the process showcasing several future Hall of Famers, including Bob Gibson and Lou Brock.

So my thoughts are with Phillies fans tonight. At least for a little while. Just think, it's a record, even if a humiliating one, and no other team will be able to say they got there first.

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It's also the 10th anniversary of the blogosphere. The Wall Street Journal's Tunku Vadarajan writes an article about this rather unheralded birthday, "Happy Blogiversary." For some reason I thought they were around a little bit longer, but then I can recall when cell phones were uncommon and C and another friend were among the very few people I knew who had them. But then that was before Craigslist, social networking sites, or Netscape's apogee and disappearance....

Anyways, Vadarajan asks some NOT VERY DIVERSE notables about their favorite blogs and gets an array of responses, including this one from that conservative bombast Tom Wolfe:

And there you have blogs. The universe of blogs is a universe of rumors, and the tribe likes it that way.

Blogs are an advance guard to the rear. For example, only a primitive would believe a word of Wikipedia (which, though not strictly a blog, shares the characteristics of the genre). The entry under my name says that in 2003 "major news media" broadcast reports of my death and that I telephoned Larry King and said, "I ain't dead yet, give me a little more time and no doubt it will become true."

And people actually thought this man had even a passable grasp on today's undergraduates? At least he did label his last volume of claptrap fiction....