Check Point Charlie

D – So what have I learned after all this time?
After all those sleepless nights. 
Lying to friends, lovers, myself. 
Playing this crooked game in this crooked town 
filled with backstabbers and four-faced liars.
I’ll tell you what I’ve found. 
One thing and one thing only.
I Fucking Love Berlin!…
L – Are you going to lie to the very end?
D – Truth and Lies. People like us don’t know the difference.
L – No. We know the difference, David. We choose to ignore it. Isn’t that right Comrade Satchel?
D – So that’s how you’ll make it work.
L – It’s a double pleasure to decieve the deceiver.
D – Well played.
BANG
[Atomic Blonde 2017]

I am still working in my studio. East Williamsburg, Berlin. Didn’t think I would be here. But there you are. Still making ridiculous things. Still over the top. Still way too much. Too crowded. Too Camp. It’s Abstraction that does nothing for anyone. Nothing real or true. Nothing for your pleasure. Nothing whatsoever for you to see… or for me either. It feels like one big con job. But these things keep appearing on the Walls like purple bruises after a hard fight or spam among the text messages. The onslaught is indefensible.

That’s all I wanted, something special
Something sacred in your eyes
For just one moment to be bold and naked
At your side
Sometimes I think that you’ll never
Understand me
Maybe this time is forever
Say it can be
[Father Figure 1987]

I’ve been MIA to writing for awhile. So let me catch you up a bit. The best thing I’ve seen since last August was Alex Katz’s show at Gladstone. Old school American Type abstraction. Clean. Distinct. Classic. Grounded in Modernist theoretics and Matissean visions. Giant orange-ish tour de force paintings neatly lined around the walls of a giant cement, wood and steel Chelsea showroom. Turns out Mr. Katz was calling us all on the carpet for shirking our job descriptions. It was devastating and thrilling.

In the front of the gallery there was also a Drawing Restraint video documenting the studio melee produced and directed by none other than Matthew Barney. The clever art documentary starts with our unlikely, ancient, and stoic hero climbing a fucking evil ladder while Jiu Jitsu-ing the Orange giants in his studio. Up and down. Down and up. Scraping his brush over the perfectly stretched surfaces. Over and over and over again. In this Homeric ordeal Mr. Katz manages to conjure a powerful and disappeared aesthetics just before his generation is extinguished. He actually plugs the hole in the Art Metaverse. I know. It’s pure nostalgia, right? I mean how could Modernism be relevant at this time and in this place? I was mesmerized. In that space, overcome by the strength and joy in those paintings, I bought the whole Modernist premise once again. Hook, line and sinker. Thanks Mr. Katz, for the reminder, the well deserved upbraid, and this amazing memory.

It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming, “Let me out”
Pray tomorrow gets me higher, higher, high
Pressure on people, people on streets
[Under Pressure 1981]

A recent interesting show “Unfollow.” Not for any particular painting discovery, but for the unexpected vibrancy of the handmade exhibit. The show took place in an empty store in a historic skyscraper near Wall Street. It was fun to see ambitious artists trying to generate a zeitgeist in the remains of capitalist failure. Unfortunately, the show couldn’t come together. And this further failure of the art brought to mind the discussion published by Vice magazine between Dean Kissick and Adam Curtis. (Go on, read it. The link’s right there. It’s interesting!) Curtis tells us, “I would argue that it’s not that reality is dissolving, it’s that the parts of society that we thought would describe what was real to you don’t work any longer.” That’s how I’ve come to see this particulalr moment as well. “Unfollow” was not about this time. But it certainly was of this time.
Think Tik Tok feeds doom scrolling through actual square footage. “Hi guys!”

There was one painting that actually worked and looked like it was trying to muster the rebels for a fight. “Unfollow” started with a good old fashioned poke in the eye – Carroll Dunham’s painting of an acidy green penis placed right at the main entrance. “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet!” It wasn’t exactly “L’Origine du Monde,” but the “Somatic Transmission” had its own idea of cheek. I suspect that Monsieur Dunham was having a laugh at our expense, as he usually does. Great start! Unfortunately, the lack of sassiness in the remainder of the show let me down. I wanted a bit more skill. A bit more brass.
The context was great. I went back a couple of times just to feel “old time art world” alienation. C’mon people. Think about it. Nerds and Geeks making weedy paintings that come sprouting up through the rubble of a failed business down at the financial center of the Western World. Chef’s kiss my friends! It could have been legendary.
I’m just sorry the weeds weren’t a bit more noxious and acerbic. Nevermind.
I guess Les Fleurs du mal will have to blossom in a different show.
Still “A” for effort!

Oh, it’s opening time down on Fascination Street
So let’s cut the conversation and get out for a bit
Because I feel it all fading and paling and I’m begging
To drag you down with me, to kick the last nail in
Yeah, I like you in that, like I like you to scream
But if you open your mouth, then I can’t be responsible
For quite what goes in or to care what comes out
So just pull on your hair, just pull on your pout
[Fascination Street 1989]

One last thing.
My friend, Picabia, continues to show up fresh from the Côte d’Azur.
Bastard.
He arrives daily to fuck with me while encouraging me to pack it in.
A friend asked, “Which Picabia are you talking about, Mark. The handsome young Turk in the studio or the wasted old sot with the wind tossed white hair?” I said, “The one living large in the south with the wife, the girlfriend, the next girlfriend.”
Francis gives my work side eyed insults.
He also musters a few horrified sneers.
And once in a while I get outright guttural laughs.
So fucking French.
And to add insult to injury he keeps coming back, because he knows I have a nice stash of 2019 Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Pop the cork and Francis will regale me with stories of his sordid late night escapades, his distaste for the ruling classes, and his disdain for my painting while calling me a fat wanker.
What he doesn’t know is that I’m gonna go over the wall the first chance I get.
And I’m taking the wine.
I know that louche douche won’t follow.
In the meantime I’ll still be plotting in East Berlin.