Men Explain Just One Thing To Me
Standout pieces from the day that look good lined up here at top of page:
I’ve only just gotten back home to Brooklyn now at 11pm. I went to the Great Hall at Cooper Union to hear Rebecca Solnit read for the 10th anniversary of her essay, “Men Explain Things To Me.” She had a deep discussion with Mona Eltahawy and Aruna D’Souza; it was an absolute revolution. A running topic of discussion was about a monument designed for women who have survived domestic and/or sexual abuse. What would that monument look like? I thought it was a question relevant to us and our needs, our future responsibility. As I looked around the full house and waited to get my books signed, I kept thinking I was seeing one or the other of your faces in the crowd. You are with me, dear class, our subjects on my mind.
Modern feminists aside, today was hardy and wholehearted and high. Literally up high, with those artists’ studios looking out over some prime real estate of inspiration. While our docent was self-deprecating, her neckwear of triggers told us she was tougher than she let on. How deep an understanding it takes of La Frontera, and what wise political avenues the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), née American Crafts, is endeavoring. The Green-Book affair, the shared institutional interpretation of it, the reprint and related upcoming documentary, altogether a large, gathered project. The interactives were clunky but I found names, places, plenty of information and learned Schomburg was involved, so that exact largeness of scope here became evident. I found myself wondering how MAD placed themselves rightly and directly in front of decision makers. How did Derrick Adams come to show this work? Was he told to make an exhibit on the Green-Book? His pieces were so new looking, I could almost smell high-art Elmers. Very fresh.
Meanwhile our excursions together get cleaner and quicker, with no one lost on the subway or NJT, we troop like gangbusters so kudos to us! The beautiful New Jersey expanse rolls over our train windows, and Sarah K. tells us a river is named Arthur Kill: what could be better. This and vegan donuts. As they say in New Jersey, “irregardless,” which isn’t a word in my opinion but if you are going to say it, you say it either as a character on “The Sopranos”, or right there in the Native Artists of North America long-term installation and new gallery spaces at the Newark Museum. Irregardless of any stuffed-to-the-gills outcry from the museum with too many valuable objects, artifacts and artworks, this notion of passive collecting is real. All too real for an institution one century in. Hence the brilliance of thought and mind I appreciate so much from the Arts of Global Africa featured installation in the newly reinstalled gallery. Magnificent tie-ins to what I believe really matters on the collections front now more than ever: sacred ceremonial objects from native traditions all over the globe. Newark had a few bits and bobs here and there with shimmers of details on how a piece came to be in the possession of the Great State of New Jersey’s cultural mecca. I get on board with that. I want to see more of that. I want for the public to know about that. Not dissimilar to knowing where your food comes from, who is your farmer, the source of nutrients… There is power and punch in knowing what feeds you.
