Entropy

I went to the Met Breuer yesterday to catch the Unfinished:Thoughts Left Visible exhibit before it closed. With over 200 works on two floors, it was a full afternoon.  After the first few galleries of work left unintentionally unfinished from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, I thought I might have overdosed and wanted to go home. But after some food I remembered the other floor and headed back in. This was more modern work that the artists purposely left undone or designed to never be finished. I was haunted by the paintings of Joseph Mallord William Taylor whose landscapes left one with the feeling of having been there without specific landmarks. I was tickled by the cheeky short film by Jorge Macchi, La Flecha de Zenón (Zeno's Arrow). I have a bit of a crush on Zeno and this was an excellent illustration of the paradox between the infinity of numbers and the finite aspect of our world. I found the Roman Opalka series OPALKA 1965/1 - ∞ to be beautiful and brilliant. 

But this one I could take home with me. Felix Gonzalez-Torres' beautiful homage to love, Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). The infinitely replenished pile of candy in multi-colored wrappers in tribute to his late partner, a metaphor for his body diminished by AIDS. Visitors are encouraged to take a candy with them, slowly depleting the pile. The museum replenishes it as it gets low, so the piece is  never finished. Unending, the way life cannot be. Wow. I'm floored and honored. 

File under:inspiration

A while back I was thinking a lot about mandalas. Cycles. Infinity. I found inspiration in Jason Hughes' work. I was thinking about imperfect mandalas and how they are such a fitting metaphor for actual living. I tried photographing some imperfect mandalas, but it wasn't working. The images were flat and missing real meaning. Then last night, I had an idea. I found my daughters kaleidoscope and started playing. Here's what I found. Hopefully this is just the beginning. I have more exploration to pursue. 

iPhone photo through a kaleidoscope  

File under: Inspiration

I've fallen in love with this instagram feed recently. Spooky and surreal. I'm only grumpy I didn't think of it first.

https://www.instagram.com/strangerselfieproject/

Attempted selfie with commuting strangers. #reflection #selfie #iphoneonly

See this Instagram photo by @strangerselfieproject * 62 likes

Let's talk about Nothing

Nothing is, perhaps, my favorite thing to talk about. It's delicious. Simply by naming it, it exists. Nothing is all around us. When I think about nothing, I can't help but think about death. But not in a morbid way. It's sort of  . . . . exciting. The law of conservation has me imagining that our energy never leaves. We all just rejoin the energy all around us and become part of the universe. In fact, we never left, we just get harder to pin down. But now I've learned about the uncertainty principle and I'm all a flutter. The idea that the harder we try to precisely measure a bit of energy, the harder it gets to precisely measure. As if by merely trying to know it, it eludes us. And it eludes us by actually ceasing to exist, at least for a moment. Cheeky.

I guess I've always loved the unknown of nothing. There's something truly invigorating about not knowing. Because then you may get to find out something new. 

This passage is from How the Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin.