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This is the Anthem.
This is the Anthem.
This is the Anthem.


Once I walked into an empty room , in a Museum, and I thought it was a memorial for the missing. I thought it was brialliant. A place where you expect human activity - ti deny you of that - suddenly - your is lost - you're at a loss - you experience loss , you try to think of what should or could be there. What a neat trick. But in fact - for some reason - they had emptied the room in ordert o fill it up again for some human function. Isn't that how history works? War is a cycle - they never stop - the ground is cleared - place are re-built - people want to forget - and to remember - small cold slabs of stone - or artistic bronze - some tiny mark - to remember a thing that is so huge it detroys space itself. It has no dimension. They could architectural, often figurative - a fancy headstone to mark the passage of total chaos - a massacre of time, space, reason.
Thinking of the Golem in all its forms that I have looked at it - these years - totally unaknowledged. Literally, dealer stood there with a lot of claptrap and had no courage to speak of it. May it come forward and do justice to anyone unspoken for in their truth. Dealers lie - or - speak from a place of grave insecurity, unless they really stand for you. In my mind, I think I have always liked the truth of the Golem, that these letters, in their power cannot be altered, the ones that bring clay to life.

When I was in graduate school I imagined 12 potential husbands. Later I read "Ill Seen Ill Said" by Beckett. I thought it uncanny that the little peeks - sharp and clear - a lace cuff - way to a home made of stone - I realized later - was it a neolithic tomb? They all have a sea view - like hers - on the high rocky mounts - open to the stars, at the atlantic edge - she too had 12 - or 8? Suitors. As many as there are planets - she is the moon. I was thrilled - to understand this. Beckett never says it - describes it. Those tombs - always cast in moonlight. I have a good photo of myself - naked by a fire - the night was full of a gigantic, bloated sphere - unbelievably huge, as it rose - I took off all my clothes - and with to friends - I got photographed by our favorite burial mound - the one we call "The King". The one I always return to. I thought - if Heidegger expanded - there would be a condition of being-with. And if that is true - how would he describe that condition. Being-With. Because, his book is Being * And * Time. Sein UND Zeit. Does he ever really address - the And. The And as a stte of being, and a state of Time. In Beckett - it is All Time. The return - of the king. A perpetual motion, in all 12 of those men - in the distance - they approach - then recede - every night she goes, and sees, and waits, for something that never arrives. Like the ghost-woman in Sinéad's song: for Jackie. So she roams the sand - waiting - for her Jackie O. O, Of Some Father. O, aphostraphe. And when Sinéad died I cried in the shower as I sang the entire length of the Lion and the Cobra blasting it so loud, the entire album I knew it inscribed in my heart it gave me so much strength as a lost and lonely teenager, on my own. The suitors never step to the shore. As if they belong the the boundary of the ocean and not the land.


My train to Warsaw was stopped by a suicide, in the pitch black of night. Really dark. I was amazed they announced they had hit a person. A chatty ticket lady gave us cookies, said it had been a woman. It was so strange to be sitting in the thing that had killed her. Technically, we had all killed her, together. There is never a chance, I was told, for a train to stop. And the driver and crew must get out to see what they hit. Confirm, and then bring in the whatever team who must investigate. We had to jump to a train on paralell tracks. So spooky as I'm writing about Szaposzcznikow and Beksinski - just sent this strange photo image Beksinski made of a woman lying on reailroad tracks with her mouth open. And I have this odd book published of drawings made by a railway worker who maintained the tracks near Madanjek. People would jump and one drawing, which stays in my mind, is what of a hand. A severed hand. He drew on scraps of newspaper and anything he could find - to bear witness, to the truth. And somehow they were preserved and published into this obscure thing that I found, and own.

I am struggling now - under pressure - to publish a serious book with zero backers - at the moment - it feels very wrong as so many people are asking for a new damn book. And those who don't understand the profit the energy and the public desire - bury their heads in their myopia. This is not a space for bitching, but that is what is happening today. I won't lie that lack of visibility and jealousy and a difficult life, make their mark on one's confidence - even when you know, that you were bron to create. So, the Golem, is and will always be, a good friend of mine.

I'll tell you what felled me. Not that I did the impossible, not that I became an epidemologist, not that I saved something marked for death with no known means to lure it back - in the middle of growth, and development - when it should be brimming with life and joy - all this aside - I will say - that in these horrible years - which I did not understand - I did not feel anything. It was only in the aftermath. Somehow I was affected - somehow - the impression it made went so deep - that it was the reflection - in this awful mirror - not of me - but of others - that no person ever asked: are you OK. No one. Not a soul. Defintely no family. But the process was ongoing. The recovery - long. Careful. Delicate. Unchartered terrain. Against the warnings and the terror of the words of the best doctors who understood the brain and this thing best - I will never say them. I will never tell them. I will only carry them. Because they still resound in the possibility of the future and no one should ever, ever have to hear such things. Like walking on glass, so carefully, so gingerly. with the shame and fear and the pressure of the expectation to rejoin the living - as if - nothing had ever happened. I wont forget that swim coach who literally threw her into the deep end of a swimming pool because she had heard she had swum in the Netherlands. These were traumatic things. A little girl who had rode alongside trucks to school who now was winded after pedalling for 10 minutes. It. Took. Years. As if I could have written this - in this field in inexplicable terror and indifference. In the words of my exceptionally gifted friend, who has won so many emmy awards; had it been some other mother - she'd be dead. He said that recently. And only recently could I accept - that he was right. I'm not scared of that, I'm not in awe. I'm only in awe - at the indifference and blidness of a world who could not utter these three magic thins: Are. You. Okay. I had to take her to Venice. I had to take her to openings. She was in a state of shock, and recovery - both - as we walked the canals - she walked alone. The thing that Beowulf had the courage to dive into - only she saw - she experienced - Grendel. Only one collector - offered a cup of tea. It was magical and fabulous - and noble in her bearing - always she is this. I only now understand the akwardness of emerging from a black cocoon with wet wings. And it i not my akwardness but the akwardnes of those - who have never faced death. And I would fall, I would stumble, I would break my wings. With things like Instagram and Facebook blaring the details of faux processes, studios and a lot of paint. Drawing is always this timelapse thing of an illustration taking shape. I have yet to see anyone do a real drawing on instagram. My studio being my most private sector, I spoke about other things. Foreign affairs. Stupidity. Life. Not everyone is PT Barnum and those platforms sell the lie - the illusion - that you are there with the artist as they create marvels and wonders. The Man Behind The Curtain. Oz in his laboratory. The Alchemist at Work. I would rather watch a silent movie. The Golem: 1921. I remember some critic named Max who I never really got to know - he came to the studio. I didnt understand why he was there. Did he want a tour? I was in the middle of working. He just stood there. Didnt ask questions. It's like, cut yourself and let me see whats under that skin flap. I can't do that. I won't. I have never been a fashion model who can talk for hours about nothing, and themselves, whatever they have borrowed from others. Heidegger isn't their thing. But their skin has always been - a surface to look at. And they make it so easy. They show, and show and show and show - they show off, because there isn't much there. Pfouf. That Rachel Feinstein and I were best friends all of college, I was laughing when recently Gagosian was blabbering about her Northern Renaissance influences - actually she was modelling with Clique agency and that was my major!I thought: did she take this from some internet press release - of mine? I'm naive. I don't see jalousy when it's standing there green in my face. I suppose - I don'y give AF as I don't see color. But when I do I'm always angry at myself - for not seeing it. Should I? Be more strategic - make paintings of birds. Joke. Nah. I stick with the Chabad - thanks. They are the ones who deserve credit for literally bringing the dead back to life in the most historic of Synagogues - was it by chance or destiny that we were in Lublin? That first meal. In that historic Yeshiva. Completed in 1924 with the photos of the Rabbis of Poland and Ukraine all around. They brought us back into the world of the living. After beating the odds. Lieder des Ghetto von Morris Rosenfeld. Illustrations by EM Lilien - my unsung hero!

Full room
I saw you see me.
The whole room filled up with the just one thing. It drowned out all the noise in the universe, it was so large.
But I ran away
What's the difference between that and death. I think there's a confusion in me, that part wasn't you.
I was so afraid
So you bolted.
Rejected
Your eyes were naked for the first time
All that stuff you wrote to me was real
You were just - shy.
You'll never let yourself have what you really want.
Will I?

We are both orphans. In truth. In that moment - we were not. But I bolted. And so did you.




I got the copy of Montaigne's full Essays! To re read. He was a hero the moment I read his first 3 words - as a 20 year old.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THE ART WORLD RIGHT NOW?
WHAT HAPPPENED
It's a reflection, a mirror to global paucity. Things get crazy. When people are scared. Insecure. Desperate. Unsure. Paradigms of wisdom, knowledge, accumulation, lean into intuition, just got replaced by Late Stage Capitalism aka liquidiation of all structures into the trshheap of chaos with no hope for a point of singularity.
I thought the other day if I were teaching, or giving a guide on "being" and artist right now - that one must be sure to be as mediocre as possible. Excellence is sneered upon, preservation is seen in opposition to something glib, conversational, celebrity driven - to be dumb - is to be valued - models are better now than artists themselves - but innovation and risk - is impossible in these conditions, as people chase after that steroid injection - where steroid injections have replaced any semblance of real muscle.
RAGE IS UNACCEPTABLE.
Unless you are a white, male, or want to be one. I never thought I would say that - because I can ahrdly differentiate between genders. I don't even undetand them. An artist is an artist. Not more, not less, not anything but. So fuck being a woman, and fuck being a man, I never understood high heels, I am too busy working. I would always buy men's work boots because you can stand in them for hours.
I write some awful personal content because I feel so betrayed. I suppose all content that is personal shouldnt be awful but - I dont understand how people cry on each other's shoulders, have support when people like - die - or - are dying - but me - I'm supposed to be nice and friendly all the time. My close friend and father figure to my daughter just buried a most important work, part of a series that hung with Cecily Brown and Laura Owens at the Whitney Museum, in a jewlery auction in San Franciscio. It was an act of rage. it was personal. I raised myself. It's an awful feeling, to live with shame. Because youre lying all the time about your happiness, your true condition, what you did over the summer - everything - is a construct - to get by - to get a chance - to perservere where one day you might be allowed - through sheer grit - to join the living. Fast forward: I end up with this French dealer who thinks I am something I am not. But I didnt understnad this. Didn't understand why I apoke French so well, but German only so so and pegged me instantly I think as some legacy child. Then, I confide in her, in person, the last I saw her, what happened to me visa visa my fathers dark death no funeral, renouncement of his German citizenship and disinheritance of all his children (4 real ones) poof - she's gone. So I confided to my closest friend and ally, someone I respect above all others, powerful art advisor, and he, followed suit - without no explanation, no respect - not a word - not even an email - tries to hurt me, harm me, harm my daughter, by desecrating a master work. He probably doesnt even remember I studied Art History at Columbia. He at Yale. I think he thinks all artists are just - wanna be Kim Kardashians at this point - willing to bend with the fell wind no matter what? I am just: my work - for all the Judiasm woven subtly in so many pieces - know one ever dared write about this except for Patrick Painter - he got it - of all the writers on planet earth who have written about me - this friend - whose child was so close to my own - killed me on purpose - from a collection that was his namesake - and how he used to complain, and bitch - about her - parent's were Holocaust survivors. And that has no meaning here - but - he knows I called this dealer an anti-semite - with good reason - and that is what made her rage. So - anti semites - and - inexplicable hatred. I am not a fan of self hating jews - or people who use my father's own violence against me - he who wanted to extinguish me, mock my achievements - was jealous of every show, dinner, step and breath I took - the fact that I got really sick once, for example - she follows his lineage of contempt, and now, one of my closest art friends as well. This is how insecure people are. And how the "market" really is. So I suppose my intelligence and my love of art history, and archeology is a curse I should regret? Better off dead? That's the message being sent in no uncertain terms. Money laundering and gossip - be Kardashian.
This dealer is notorious for behaving outrageously toward people and turning them away - collectors, journalists, artists, her own staff. At a dinner not long ago with a very good journalist they had been so tight - same damn thing happened. Just - a loose cannon. Maybe my close friend and former father figure to my daughter is - the same - running after the explosive rage of every loose canon to make a buck and then rage on the very product that made him rich.
Haters, gonna hate. Look at all that hate. I just followed the instincts of my soul and I am not even a zionist. I just take Judiasm seriously, with respect to its culture, it's influence on me - of so many, many influecnces in the deep crevasses of time going all the way back before Pompeii...
Thanks to those who support me in their love for good art, for talent, for genuine expression. Dealers should say upfront why they support you what their strategy is and what the arc of interaction looks like to them. Fair is fair. Shrieking hatred and vengeful envy should go to therapy - not the art market.
So it really sucks to be harmed in the silence of jealousy and anger in secrecy - vengeful envy and confused proejction. I do not need some psychotic French dealer stabibng me to pieces for my lack of Aristocratic bloodline - circuitry of power - in the fragile net that attaches ego to money to art. Sorry. I'm a blue collar Jew who fought very hard and found friends in Montaigne, Maupassaunt, Sartre, Camus, Annouhil, Celine, Voilatire, Rousseau and ANatole France. Most of all my BFF was Genet and the films of Cocteau - not his drawings I never liked them. And of course - my temple of space: Notre Dame, Gothic Cathedrals - and the tombs of St Denis, I always visit when in Paris. Now I have a new place, at Noget sur Seine - the musee Camille Claudel - she had to be put in an asylum for over 30 years to be foud only a few years ago? Keep it going people. Afraid of a shadow that is not that of your fears, which you keep in your pocket, because they are so easy to invoke, it takes only an intelligent woman who chooses her talent and indepdence over your expectations which she does not even recognize, or know.
And wow did I have to fight to be seen, just seen, at the dinner table - never mind - the world. I remember the first time I was in Vogue, I was very proud I made it in there, I was just in a photo, some small thing, my father pretended he didnt see the magazien, or me, standing in front of him, showing it to him, he literally pretended that I was not there. Inside a house, he stared blankly ahead of him, silent. And I said "look dad, look." He stood silently, and then said something mundane about dinner, and moved away. It was so hurtful. What the fuck. Who does that. Can you imagine the depth, the bottomless pit that has to exist, to do that to your own kin
Keep white men away from me, and let the world evolve past the insecurities that choose inbred security andthe marriage of older men and their money to young minxes to make everyone feel acceptable to each other. Talent will be stifled and it is the job of those people tp blow confidence into the room, and with that - money.
I am sorry CLaude Berri committed suicide. He was a talened man who bought nearly my entire show 2 weeks before taking his life, in Paris.

Celine, Genet, Homer, Nietszche. I saw the grave of Proust at Pierre Lachaise. A memorial for "All The Poles Who Died for France." My friend laguhed. He joked, "Do you think Poland has a memorial for the French who died for Poland?" Of course not. We talked about Petain and the Vichy government. As we walked the streets I said to my daughter, "See all this beauty? Imagine if it was bombed, like Warsaw." Of course, all the finery and food of Paris, Germans can't cook for shit. A crude assessment, but, they would have wantonly wreck Paris - they wanted it as is. And Petain was this little sheep-poodle. Hitler had some kind of fixation on Poland. A place to build camps. A place to extend territory that was already mixed - liek the city of Gdansk - it was ruled under a German Polish cooperation - so it's not like you has German speaking areas in France. There is a strange push back, lined with a bit of terror at the mention of Poland. Some mix of - fear and something else. Are they still afraid of the Russians who seized it - from whom they had to run? I know a handful of Germans who say: "oh yes, my Grandmother/Grandfather was from an area there (now Polish) I shoud visit." But they don't. It's like - this forbidden zone. Well the camps are there. How many Germans are visiting them? None that I know. That would be an intersting mandatory field trip. Survivors sometimes visit camps. They come full circle. But interestingly, I never met a German who willfully has done this, and openly discusses it. It's as if the border contains the pain, and it's Polands issue. Poland does actively work on it. The Jewish comunity is involved with rememberance and digs that continue, where they find mass graves. They have them in Germany too. But they are not digging them up. Intersting how the Russian destruction of that great dam in Ukraine revealed the skeletons of German soldiers, mouths open, they looked so expressive, like they were screaming, with their helmets strapped tight, to their heads.
My friend just described a fun wedding. I go to no weddings. I have a ways to go.

Claude Picacsso died. I am good friends with his ex wife of ages ago - a marriage that last not long - a New Yorker - from the hip scene of the 60's - she is my mother's age - I thought I him when I learned the horrible story of Camille Claudel how such a talented bright force was institutionalized for 35 years by her own family - just to control her art. Disgusting. What families do. Jealous family members. It's like you should be born and the first thing you should do is walk away from your family, to preserve your life. Jesus, in the 19th century such talent and just - exploited - because she was female. I don'y see anyone putting Rodin in an institution. It's not even explained what excuse they used to do that. And I think of how cruel Picasso was to his son. Another blind narcissist - I can relate. Hateful towards youth, hateful to was he perceived only as a threat to his virility - to his life span - asshole. Sara described how Clause, when they were married wanted to introduce her to his father, naturally, he was in love and proud. So they drove to that property Picasso bought, with a view to Cezannes mountain, the one Cezanne was so obssessed with, some kind of Hotel Particulier or chateau. I know that mountain well because I suffered through an entire semester of Cezanne and always fell asleep during class, staring at eternal views of trees from that location. They went to his property and there was a concerieg guarging the gate. He explained that he was claude, the owner's son, and after a little while the conceirge returned and told him his father was busy and could not see him. They had driven all the way from Paris to this bloody location and his father would not let him in. Then came a gaggle of contractors to work on the hoom laughing and joking and the concierge opened the gate immediately and they sauntered past...Picasso's own son, and new wife. So there stood Claude, helpless, and they drove back to Paris. Similar to my father, Picasso never gave him anything. Once, I was told. Picasso randomly sent him a poster, signed, "to Claude" or some such thing. ANd that's it. He yearned for inclusion, yearned for his love, his whole life. You know, the crueler parents are, the harder the heart seeks attention, seeks, redemption, because children are essentially good, and need love. But he never got it. There was some kind of relief I was told when the management of Picasso's estate went to Claude, but there he was, defined by his father, again, but in a different way. This story stuck to me. I was treated similarly, with abject cruelty, a horrible kind of jealousy, just for being alive. ANd being female. And being talented. Three strikes, my father wanted totally to eliminate me. I was the most threatening creature on earth. Not a daughter, an object, into which he poured his hatred, and he had a lot of help - from wife #4. It made her look like a loyal fiend, willing to go to any lengths, to prove her loyalty, to seem like an ally to his hatred, to his paranoia, to his distorted lens.
Glad that's over. But it fucked me up in many ways. I can't to weddings. I dont know what they are. DOes tht alone put me in the category of Art Brut? I am so annoyed that I am haunted by the wife of John Currin my whole life - not her - but her mixish stupdiity - her main qualifications coming for the fact that she was a fashion model from a very ritzy private school - my college best friend who many said - was entirely jealous of me - yes well - sorry babe - you dont have the talent but you know what to say, imitate, copy and just BS about...because you are a fashion model to the girl, a princess, and nothing more. I cannot help this, but I detest being used by it. My own step sister, and step mother laid the ground work for this dynaic, such harmful and hurtful - psychotic - jealousy - for no explicable reason - from the earliest days of my childhood. It really affects me. I looked at Rachel's recent show at Gagosian of all places - she is a great operator - and her work absolutely sucks.
Blind Daughter of Tuonela that I am
Blind Daughter of Louhi that she is
The Beauty that you feel is not what you see
That I see
You are so blind, more blind, than me.




Pisze po polsku. Bo zacze?o si? tam w Polsce. Gdzie ktos si? urodzi?. Nie tam, gdzie otworzyla si? wrota krwi. Moja wrota krwi. To bylo gdzie indziej. Napisa?em o tym do programu, który zrobi?em z Hansem Bellmerem i za ten tekst Gabrielle Salomon bardzo mnie pochwali?a. Jest gdzie? tutaj, poni?ej. Brama krwi, o ktorej mowie, to inna osoba, w innym miejscu, w innym narodzie. Mówi innym j?zykiem. W jakis sposób nasza krew - sie skrzy?owa?a.
Ale jak to mo?liwe. Aby cz?owiek krwawil, musi zosta? poci?ty. Musi by? rozdarty. Musi zostac zaatakowany. Z czyms, o czym nie mo?e ?ni?. Mo?e co? ze stali, w fabryce, albo w?ókna gwo?dzia, co? najbli?szego zyciu, przymocowane do dloni, ale wkrótce odci?te. Tylko w ten sposób cz?owiek mo?e krwawic. A je?li tak, to jak zmiesza?a si? nasza krew?
Nawet a ja to pisz?, a t, h, ja, s, to w?a?ciwie o nim – on – nie ja – ale on – odbudowuje siebie. Zacz?lo si? nie tutaj. Zacz?lo sie w Polsce. Zacz??o si? od mojego cia?a. Zacz??o si? od jego spojrzenia. Zaczyna sie od zamknietych oczu. Zacz??o sie od mojego lona. Zacz??o sie od ch?ci mieszania. Ale nasza krew byla ju? zmieszana.
Jak to jest.
Jak to si? mog?o miesza? – juz.
polska krew.
I my?l? o w?ciek?o?ci. I jak blisko jest do mi?o?ci. To nie jest spokrewnione, ale siedz? w komnatach blisko siebie. Ich przestrzenie mieszaj? si?, jak zmieszana krew. Mo?na powiedzie? trucizna, ale to jest krew.
THE BLACK THING IN THE ROOM




Can't hold my breath from another
You are the imperfect storm.
My feet are falling from the ground. My head up in the clouds from the core. With fainting eyes.


I hate it when our eyes meet. You know when you have peered into a person's soul. Why did they let you in. Just a crack. But they won't open. To you, they are like the air you breathe, it feels like, blood, in your veins, what you see, what you feel, when you are cut, you bleed them...they come pouring out of you. But they won't let you in. They just show that they want you. But do nothing
And you wish you had 1000 babies with them. How dare they speak of such things with you.


LOVITAR - Blind Daughter of Death

"Loviatar, vaimo vanha,
pahin Tuonen tyttäriä,
ilke'in manattaria,
alku kaikille pahoille,
tuhansille turmioille.
Sill' oli muoto mustanlainen,
iho inhon-karvallinen.
Tuopa musta Tuonen tyttö,
ulappalan umpisilmä,
teki tielle vuotehensa,
pahnansa pahalle maalle.
Selin tuulehen makasi,
kaltoin säähän karkeahan,
perin viimahan viluhun,
kohin päivänkoittehesen."

(Elias Lönnrot, Kalevala, 5th Rune, 1849)


TRANSLATION 1

"The blind daughter of Tuoni,
Old and wicked witch, Lowyatar
Worst of all the Death-land women
Ugliest of Mana's children
Source of all the host of evils
All the ills and plagues of Northland
Black in heart, and soul, and visage

Evil genius of Lappala
Made her couch along the wayside
On the fields of sin and sorrow
Turned her back upon the East-wind
To the source of stormy weather
To the chilling winds of morning."

TRANSLATION 2

"A girl there was of Tuonela
blind
Pit-daughter
an old woman
the worst of Tuoni's daughters
wickedest of death-daughter's
source of all ills
a thousand downfalls;
she had a swarthy face, a
skin of loathsome hue.
Well, that black girl of Tuoni,
the sightless one of the depths,
made her bed upon a road
her litter on evil land
lay with her back to the wind
her side to the rough weather
her rear to the chilly blast.
>
TRANSLATION 3

"The girl of death's domain was blind, Lovitar, an old woman
Death's worst daughter, the wickedest daughter of the Abode of the Dead,
source of all evils, of thousands of disasters
She had a very dark coloring, a vile colored skin
That dark girl of Death, the half-blind one of Waste-Land
Made her bed on a pathway, laid her pallet on bad ground
She lay down back to the wind, aslant to the severe wind,
Back to the blasting cold, facing the dawn."

 


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