Combining Crap With Crap

That's what Karen Archey at Art Fag City calls assemblage in this post. It generated a lot of protest, and was admittedly not quite thought out. But I laughed when I read those words. That is what assemblage is--putting bits of crap together to make art; if you saw the collected elements laid out on the floor would seem extremely unlikely to combine to be "art," and yet do.

Paddy Johnson, responding to the outcry the original post caused, wrote a new post: "Reasons Why Assemblage (Or 'Crap on Crap') Is Now the 'House Style' of the Art World." In my profound laziness, I am just going to copy her reasons here.

1. Everybody’s broke and there’s always an abundance of trash.
2. Six years of art education teaches that high art is dead so everyone takes the low road.
3. Disgust with capitalism and consumer culture.
4. “Nihilism.”
5. Genuine love of trash culture and its byproducts.
6. Avoidance of known art materials.
7. A way to make formal arrangements of things without being called “Greenbergian.”
8. A way to be political without sloganeering.
9. Genuine interest in the lineage of Schwitters/Rauschenberg–-considering it an unfinished project.
10. New trash (web and technology cast-offs) necessitates new ways of arranging trash (and new content unknown to Rauschenberg, et al).

I would add at least one more reason. (11) A delight at taking bits of crap and creating something artistically interesting out of it. I guess 11 overlaps with 5, 6, and 9, except I am thinking more of things like Picasso making a bull's head out of a bicycle seat and handlebars.

Of course, some of my all time favorite artists were or are "crap on crap" artists: Kienholz, Rauschenberg, Jessica Stockholder. And the word "assemblage" just sounds like it was invented by fucking PhD. I will keep using the word, but in my mind, all those great pieces of scrap and glue and stuff are "crap on crap" art.

Once Upon a Time at Lawndale

Last night, I went to hear James Surls speak at Lawndale. Surls was the founder of the institution 30 years ago. Lots of former students and cronies were present, as well as art lovers of all stripes (I saw the director of CAMH there). It was a standing-room only crowd.

Surls is almost 70, but he has the vitality of a much younger man. He speaks and looks like someone decades younger. Just imagine, then, what a dynamo he must have been when Lawndale started.

He's a modest person. He claims it was the right time and right place for Lawndale, and that he was just along for the ride. He refers to the founding of P.S. 1 in New York in 1971, and similar institutions in L.A., and says it was inevitable that something like that would pop up in the middle of the country somewhere. Probably so.

He had been teaching at SMU, and he proposed that they just buy a warehouse for that purpose. He knew they'd say no. So he comes to Houston, an art professor, no particular ambitions to try to get the university to buy a warehouse because, after all, he knew they'd say no--when the art department's building caught fire. It was uninhabitable. Fortunately, UH had another space. Schlumberger had given UH an old building out on Lawndale. The admin at UH was very apologetic about putting him and his students in this industrial tenement in the middle of a slum. Surls was all, "Please don't trow me in dat briar patch, boss!"

Of course it turned out to be perfect. Huge exhibition and performance spaces, studio space for many, many students (and random fringies). Surls described it as "indestructible."

And it was needed really badly at that moment. The major art institutions in the city had no interest in showing local art. (This was before Peter Marzio came to MFAH.) And, as Surls put it, the big boys in the performing and visual arts in Houston were deathly afraid of failure. They were afraid of putting on a show that left critics (or donors) asking, "What the fuck were you thinking." Surls saw Lawndale as a place where one could fail and it wouldn't matter. (Because Lawndale was indestructible--both physically, and as a no-budget experimental art space, conceptually as well.)

He told lots of great stories. Here's one--about Black Flag playing at Lawndale. He was used to getting in avant jazz bands like The Art Ensemble of Chicago or Sun Ra, but he had no idea what to expect from Black Flag. The show was what you would expect, with punks throwing beer bottles against the walls and HPD coming out in force to shut it all down. The next morning, he gets a call from the head of the art department panicking. The papers had reported a riot at Lawndale. A group of administrators from the University was on its way.

They had a rule--not always followed, but most of the time it was--clean up after a show right away. And they had done so. Remember, Lawndale was indestructible. Some sweeping and mopping and scrubbing were all it needed.

That morning, the big hall was being used by a local girl scout troop to award merit badges. So a bunch of little Hispanic girls in their nicest clothes and patent-leather shoes, their proud moms and dads also all dressed up (lots of ostrich-skin cowboy boots). This is happening when the posse from UH shows up. And they sat a while watching. Then they left. No chewing out, no riot act.

Surls did his own artwork there at Lawndale, too. He said this was considered a no-no, for a professor to be doing his work in view of the students. But he felt that students creating their pieces alongside older and more accomplished artists would have a salutory effect. Perhaps. Perhaps that's so when the artist has Surls' generosity of spirit.

Stuff in Houston started changing after Lawndale. Surls says Lawndale was a catalyst, but again credits the times and the flow of events. Diverse Works, a kind of more sophisticated, professional Lawndale, started five years after Lawndale. The Glassell School's Core artist-in-residency program began in 1982--and that was a way for MFAH to do something similar to what Lawndale was doing. "Fresh Paint,"" the MFAH's first big show of Houston artists, happened in 1985. Now we have things like Project Row Houses, Box 13, etc.

Surls doesn't exactly seem to approve of what Lawndale has become, but he is far too gracious to say it. His only verbalized complaint is that Lawndale is not longer the Lawndale Art & Performance Center. He saw performance as a key element. For a relatively traditional artist (a guy who carves wood with a hatchet to make sculptures), Surls is way into performance art, into conceptualism, etc. He namechecks Chris Burden and the Art Guys (not to mention Sun Tzu and Peter Drucker).

It was a really interesting and inspiring talk.

Frenetic Fringe Festival -- Weekend 3 Bullets

I went to the final day of the Frenetic Fringe Festival on Saturday, and have been processing it ever since. This was the first night that felt distinctly fringey. This is not a value judgement, and if anything, it says more about me than about the work. But on other nights, I might have reacted "Hmmm, yes... Yes..." or "Meh," this night's show evoked a few "Holy shits" from me.

Again I apologize for no photos--they really would help. You wouldn't be forced to depend on my inadequate descriptions, delivered insultingly in bulletpoints, as if this were a memo for upper management.

So with that, away we go!

"What The Storm Brought Home" by Jere Pfister

• A one-woman play.
• She tells us about her mother and three aunts from New Orleans.
• After Katrina, she had to rescue one of the aunts, Billie, from a shelter in Baton Rouge.
• Billie is starting to go senile.
• Billie talks to the narrator's dead mother about sexual abuse she suffered from her step-father.
• The narrator realizes that her aunts, who seemed so puritanical and who took obsessive interest in her sex life, were protecting her.
• They never left her alone with her grandfather.
• But they could never say why until they were old and seriously infirm.
• This was one of the "Hmmm, yes..." pieces. It was good but not "fringe."

"Pain, Pleasure, and a Bunny Rabbit" directed by Kieth Reynolds

• A farce like "Spelling Bee Sluts" from the second weekend.
• A father takes his three daughters out to one of those hunting ranches where they keep animals penned for hunters to shoot.
• One daughter is a goth, one daughter is a curvy blonde airhead, and one daughter is a mannish lesbian.
• The animals are mostly dancers, so whenever the ranch manager sets one free, we see some animalish dancing.
• Which is abruptly truncated by the shooting of the four hunters.
• There is also music and singing.
• The music was played on a keyboard set-up and was amplified. It tended to drown out the unamplified singing.
• While I watched this, I kept wondering, what is the point? In short, "Meh."

"Tetsujin" by Rebecca French and Robert Thoth

• These two are the founders of FrenetiCore and the Frenetic Theater
• This film is basically a film of three women dancing in an industrial landscape, while a man does karate movies.
• This seems like something in the air--combining modern dance with other activities that involve the moving body.
• So combine modern dance with kung fu, or with circus clowning.
• It was an interesting piece of work. 
• Tasteful, not very "fringey" except for the unusual combination of dance and martial arts.

"Forever Hold Your Piece (for Now) A.K.A. Bob Hope's Nightmare" choreographed by Rob Davidson (Kinetic Architecture)

• This was the first piece that seemed really fringey.
• Davidson is a dancer who presented a kind of high-camp U.S.O. show.
• He was dressed in drag as a spike-haired Statue of Liberty.
• His dress left his upper chest bare, so we could see his pierced nipples.
• His clunky high-heel boots made dancing a little challenging.
  
• The "chorus line" girls were dressed in frilly hot-pants and red-white-and-blue tops.
• Davidson spoke to the audience and encouraged audience participation.
• One of the dances was to a medley of the armed service theme songs.
• Then he changed into a costume that would allow a little more dance-like movement.
• He danced to "Don't Laugh at Me."
• This is that super corny song that begs people not to laugh at other people because they are different.
• The sentiment is unarguable, but the song is cringe-inducing.
• In his dance of the song, he kept falling down and popping back up.
• It was hard to tell whether he wanted us to experience the music ironically (about the only way I can experience it) or not!
• Davidson was funny, an amazing showman, outrageous, and a hell of a dancer.

 "Alice and the Underground" written by Janet Thielke and Mark Carrier

• A conversation between  three members of the Weather Underground on the day they accidentally blow themselves up.
• Alice, the female member, is unconvinced about the bombing that is planned.
• The two other guys use wacky, fractured logic to try to convince her.
• The conversation deliberately reflects Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Doormouse.
• It's a clever conceit, and it sort of works.
• But it kind of goes on too long. 

"Easy Credit Theater" by Richard Hubscher

• This is a performance that includes "dance" broadly defined, singing, and extreme physicality.
• It's the second Frenetic Fringe Festival that deliberately recalls Butoh.
• Hubscher is on stage in a Butoh-like loin cloth.
• But more important, he performs under an extreme physical constraint, one he can barely manage.
• This gives his performance unbelievable tension.
• He lifts a wide wooden beam onto his shoulders.
• It must be 30 feet wide, 4" x 4".
• He staggers under the weight.
• It is slightly unbalanced, and when he looks like he is about to fall, he asks for help centering it.
• He speaks into a microphone.
• You can hear him panting.
• He tells us that it is a beam from the floor of his house, which has been torn down.
• He is muscular--he definitely has a dancer's body.
• But he is staggering under the weight.
• You can see his muscles straining, and the mike picks up his panting.
• He then sings a torch song to a recorded accompaniment.
• He finishes while we in the audience were grimacing, awaiting his fall.
• Surely he is meaning to recall Jesus Christ bearing the cross through the streets to Calvary.
  
• His assistants lift the beam off his shoulders.
• He breathes hard, and slowly puts on his pants, shirt, and shoes.
• Then he sings (rants, chants, raps) another song--an angry one about being a Texan.
• It's for George Bush.

Untitled by Jim Pirtle

• Another legitimately "fringe" performance.
• Pirtle is kind of a local performance art legend.
• He has stuff up right now at CAMH, if you want to see his tamer side.
• For this performance, he explains that he heard somewhere that you can get drunk faster if you squirt booze up your ass.
• Uh oh...
• He has a squeeze bottle, lube, and a bottle of wine.
• And "stunt pants" as he calls them.
• And thank god for that--he doesn't actually have to take the pants off.
• Still, we watch the entire awkward process.
• He succeeds in getting a small quantity of wine up there (or so it seems--no way to know for sure, really).
• He gives himself the classic pre-breathalizer sobriety test. He is still sober.
• But he assures us it might take a few minutes before he is "rip-snorting."
• His is the only performance that required no talent.
• Yet he was funny and obviously knew how to keep an audience's attention.
• Pirtle is a showman, that's for sure.

Last Night I Dreamt About James Turrell

I had this dream last night. A friend of mine (let's call him "C") were on the run from some insistent secret agent types in Philadelphia. We escape by disappearing into the Philly subway system (I have no idea if Philadelphia has a subway). After a number of close calls, we manage to shake them lose. We get help from some other secret agent types, who help us boost a car (a Porsche). I wondered if those agents are actually on our side or are agent provacateurs.

We drive out to the edge of town into some low hills, and we take a dirt road that leads us to a wide flat expanse. Around us are brand new buildings, townhome-style apartments, built of red brick, concrete, and granite. Looking out over the vast field in front of us, I can see the campus of Rice University.

"I know where we are," I tell C. "This is where the new construction for Rice is happening. I think these are new married student apartments or something." I tell him that in order to escape, we should drive across the field to the main campus.

But the drive is blocked by several enormous construction machines. These things seem to be engaged in breaking up huge slabs of granite and concrete. They work so rapidly that there is no safe way to drive past them. We call and gesture for them to let us pass, but they ignore us.

"Those guys are assholes! Let's hoof it."

We have no qualms about abandoning the car (it was stolen anyway). We walk around the machines carefully along the south end of the field, where a man is busy planting bushes. The bushes are being planted in an interesting pattern. I ask him if he is part of this new construction going on.

"Well, sort of," he replies. "The University hired me to create an art piece in the field to visually connect it to the rest of the campus."

"That's cool, but I have to tell you, your co-workers over there," pointing to the machines, "are grada-A assholes."

He smiles a crooked smile of acknowledgement, puts out his hand, and introduces himself as James. He looks to be in his 40s or 50s, has a full head of somewhat curly hair, mostly grey, and a moustache. He is wearing jeans and a blue work-shirt.

"I'm going to take a break--you want some coffee?"

We agree, and he walks over to the completed apartments. He and his family are the only tenants--they are living there while he works on his piece. He mentions having a kid, but we only meet his wife. We make small chit-chat and he tells us a lot about the piece. Then he announces he has to walk over to the main campus where he has a studio set up.

We start to walk when a light-bulb goes off in my head. "Are you James Turrell?" He had never told us his last name.

"That's me."

C looks confused, and I tell him that James Turrell is a well-known artist. I start to mention the tunnel at the MFAH, but C is not the type of guy who goes to museums, so I leave it at that.

Turrell has a studio in the art department at Rice, where he is working with a bunch of students. You can see models and drawings of different ideas for the space. He seems to have both the respect and the casual friendship of the students, and he is generous with his time in talking to C and me. He is genuinely likable.

Then I woke up.

I have no idea what James Turrell looks like. He is, however, creating a piece for the space between the the Shepherd School, the Baker Institute, and McNair. That's great because that open space has long been a weirdly dead area. No one hangs out there.

Hilariously, the press release proclaims "Multimillion-dollar gift will bring Turrell masterpiece to Rice University." Richard Connelly of the Houston Press has some fun with that. I'll be happy if Turrell in real life turns out to be as cool as Turrell in my dream.

Collectors

I'm a collector on a small scale. Initially collected just comic book and comic strip art. Specifically the work of certain alternative/underground cartoonists, and comic strips from the 1930s to the 1950s (I would love to go earlier than the 1930s for certain strips, but they are typically beyond my price range). And, without really intending to, I bought some art by young Houston artists recently. (I mean, I intended to buy the art, because I liked it, but I wasn't focusing on Houston artists per se.)

But enough about me. Collectors in general are the subject of this post. When I think about collectors, I think of people whose defining quality is their wealth. Totally unfair, but that's the image that comes to mind. After all, collectors aren't the ones with talent and vision--the artists are. So when you see collectors profiled in a magazine or newspaper, it has the exact same feel (to me) as some vapid society page profile--the latest plutocrats (or plutocrat's spouse or heir) being kissed-up to, fawned upon, because they have a lot of money and a mildly interesting hobby. I mean, if someone because rich because he or she was a brilliant businessman and then got into art collecting, that's interesting--as long as you include the first half of the story.

For example, Peter Norton is major collector of contemporary art, especially African-American art. But it is more interesting to me that he pioneered ways to retrieve lost data off of hard drives! And take the De Menils--Dominique and Jean. Dominique was the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger, co-inventer of well logging and founder of the oil services company that still bears his name. Jean eventually became pesident of the company, and the pair, fleeing the Nazi's, set up shop in Houston. I read that Jean eventually went back to guide commando raids against Schlumberger facilities in Romania--helping guys blow up his own facilities in an effort to deny the Nazis precious petroleum. This is way more interesting than the fact that the couple were major art collectors! (Even though I treasure their collection and visit the Menil Museum often.)

OK, maybe I am being harsh on collectors. There are definitely some collectors whose collecting is interesting (and even admirable) in and of itself. Like Norton Dodge, whose daredevil collecting of non-conformist and dissident Soviet Art probably rescued much of it from destruction or oblivion.

This has all been leading up to the story of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel.

The backstory to the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States gift is, well, sui generis to say the least. (So much so that it generated a recently ­released documentary, "Herb and Dorothy.") New York-born Herb, a high-school dropout and aspiring artist who worked a day job as a postal clerk, married Dorothy Hoffman of Elmira, N.Y., a Brooklyn librarian who also became an aspiring painter. The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection is what resulted from their decision shortly thereafter, in the mid-1960s, to collect rather than make art. They earmarked Herb's modest salary for that purpose, and for much of the next four decades the pair were Zelig-like presences on the New York art scene, easily attending as many as 25 shows a week. In 1990, it would take five full-size moving vans to empty their one-bedroom Upper East Side apartment of the 2,400 works—covering every inch of wall space, stacked in crates and under beds—that they'd so voraciously collected. (Anne S. Lewis, Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2009)

Now these are heroic collectors! I also like their collecting strategies and practical considerations.

They bartered with the Christos: a summer of cat-sitting for a collage preparatory work from the Valley Curtain project. The only rules, Dorothy explained, were that the work "be affordable and fit into our apartment." And be able to be carried home by bus or subway.

(Of course, it helps that they had excellent taste, too.) So what are they doing with their collection? Given the value of many of the pieces, they could auction off some of the most valuable pieces, start a foundation, build a museum ("The Vogel Museum"), and bask in their own glory. Instead, they are giving it away.

In the end, 1,100 works would go to the National Gallery, and 2,500 works by 177 artists were set aside for the Fifty Works for Fifty States initiative, the brainchild of National Gallery curator Ruth Fine, who was inspired by the Kress Foundation's model for distributing its Old Masters collection. The concept was "a ­mini-Vogel collection for each state," explains Ms. Fine. "There were some artists—Tuttle, for example—for whom there was enough for everyone to get at least one work. Each museum got about 40 drawings and 10 paintings or objects." Gifts went first to museums with whom the Vogels had some personal connection over the years, Dorothy explained. (The Blanton [in Austin], for example, had a Vogel exhibit in 1997.) A Web site to document the project and link the recipient museums may head off the hand-wringing of those who fear that—particularly for its lesser-known artists—dispersing a collection like the ­Vogels' could fragment it.

­ They have a website about this effort here. If a collector can have role-models, the Vogels are perfect!

Is there anyone like the Vogels in the world of comic art collecting? I'd say the closest (that I know of) is Glenn Bray.

Then there are those who are more correctly identified as patrons — initiating projects, conducting obsessive research, sometimes bringing to light overlooked or forgotten niches of culture. For years, Jim Shaw kept urging me to visit Glenn Bray’s collection, but it wasn’t until I wrote a catalog essay for an exhibition of his archive of work by the visionary grotesque comic book artist Basil Wolverton that I finally made the short trek to the Valley, where Bray still manages the hardware store his father founded, and lives with his partner, Dutch underground comix legend Lena Zwalve (aka "Tante Leny"). (Doug Harvey, L.A. Weekly, May 13, 2008)

If you want just a small taste of his collection, check out The Original Art of Basil Wolverton.

Pan Lives!

By the way, here is the Burroughs piece that inspired the title of this blog. I first heard it on the excellent Dead City Radio. It turns out it was written as part of a project with Keith Haring called "Apocalypse."

Mariners sailing close to the shores of Tuscany heard a voice cry out from the hills, the trees and the sky: "The Great God Pan is dead!" Pan, God of Panic: the sudden awareness that everything is alive and significant. The date was December 25, 1 A.D. But Pan lives on in the realm of the imagination, in writing and painting and music. Look at Van Gogh's sunflowers, writhing with portentous life; listen to the Pipes of Pan in Joujouka. Now Pan is neutralized framed in museums, entombed in books, relegated to folklore.

But art is spilling out of its frames into subway graffiti. Will it stop there? Consider an apocalyptic statement: 'Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.' - - Hassan i Sabbah. Not to be interpreted as an invitation to all manner of restrained and destructive behavior; that would be a minor episode, which would run its course. Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It is all make-believe, illusion, dream...ART. When art leaves the frame and the written word leaves the page - - not merely the physical frame and page, but the frames and pages of assigned categories - - a basic disruption of reality itself occurs: the literal realization of art. This is a very different direction from Duchamp, Klein and Manzoni, of appropriating everything in sight by signing it or putting it on a pedestal. Instead of appropriating by framing and signing, remove the frames and the pedestals, yes, even the signatures. Every dedicated artist attempts the impossible, Success will write APOCALYPSE across the sky. The artist aims for a miracle. The painter wills his picture to move off the canvas with a separate life, movement outside of the picture, and one rent in the fabric is all it takes for pandemonium to sluice through.

Last act, the End, this is where we all came in. The final Apocalypse is when every man sees what he sees, feels what he feels, and hears what he hears. The creatures of all your dreams and nightmares are right here, right now, solid as they ever were or ever will be, electric vitality of careening subways faster faster faster stations flash by in a blur.

Pan God of Panic, whips screaming crowds, as millions of faces look up at the torn sky:

OFF THE TRACK! OFF THE TRACK!

The planet is pulling loose from its moorings, careening into space, spilling cities and mountains and seas into the Void, spinning faster and faster as days and nights flash by like subway stations. Iron penis chimneys ejaculate blue sparks in a reek of ozone, tunnels crunch down teeth of concrete and steel, flattening cars like beer cans. Graffiti eats through glass and steel like acid, races across the sky in tornados of flaming colors.

Cherry-pickers with satin brushes big as a door inch through Wall Street, leaving a vast souvenir postcard of the Grand Canyon. Water trucks slosh out paint, outlaw painters armed with paint pistols paint everything and everyone in reach. Survival Artists, paint cans strapped to their backs, grenades at their belts paint anything and anybody within range. Skywriters, dogfight, collide and explode in paint. Telephone poles dance electric jigs in swirling crackling wires. Neon explosions and tornados flash through ruined cities, volcanoes spew molten colors as the earth's crust buckles and splinters into jigsaw pieces.

The household appliances revolt: washing machines snatch clothes from the guests, bellowing Hoovers suck off makeup and wigs and false teeth, electric toothbrushes leap into screaming mouths, clothes dryers turn gardens into dust bowls, garden tools whiz through lawn parties, impaling the guests, who are hacked to fertilizer by industrious Japanese hatchets. Loathsome, misshapen, bulbous plants spring from their bones, covering golf courses, swimming pools, country clubs and tasteful dwellings.

Skyscrapers scrape rents of blue and white paint from the sky, shredding, peeling, nitrous ochres and red eat through bridges, which fall into the rivers splashing colors across - my back I always hear - piers, streets AMOK art - Hurry up please, it's time - floods inorganic molds - Time's winged chariot hurrying - stirring passion of - near. Closing time gentlemen - metal and glass steel - these our actors as I foretold you - girders writhe - actors frantically packing in theatrical - mineral lust - hotels... are all spirits.

Oh don't bother - burst from concrete - with all that junk, John - were all spirits, John - covers - the Director is on stage and are melted into - walls - h don't bother - burst from concrete - with all that junk, John - were all spirits, John - covers - the Director is on stage and are melted into - walls - air and you know what that means in show business - of glass - melt into thin air. Hurry up please it's time. Caught - burn - in New York beneath the animals of the village - with madness - the Piper pulled down the sky. This insub - billion crazed - stantial pageant faded leaves not a - roads buck - wrack behind. Closing time, hurry - sidewalks run ahead - up it's time.air and you know what that means in show business - of glass - melt into thin air. Hurry up please it's time. Caught - burn - in New York beneath the animals of the village - with madness - the Piper pulled down the sky. This insub - billion crazed - stantial pageant faded leaves not a - roads buck - wrack behind. Closing time, hurry - sidewalks run ahead - up it's time.

At my back - faster and faster - I always hear hurry up - energy ground down into - please it's time closing - sidewalks and street by billions of feet and tires erupt from manholes and tunnels break out with volcanic force let it come down careening subways faster and faster stations blur by, Pan whips screaming crowds with flaming pipes millions of faces look up at the torn sky OFF THE TRACK OFF THE TRACK the planet is pulling loose from its moorings, careening off into space spilling cities and mountains and seas into the Void faster and faster.

This is where we all came in blue and white paint from when Everyman sees color nightmares are right here warehouses and piers electric energy floods inorganic molds subways faster and faster, glass steel girder Pan God of Panic whips screaming concrete, faces look up at the torn sky and burn with madness. TRACK the planet is pulling bucking cars and trucks careening into space faster and faster into the Void spinning walks and streets flash by like subway stations in a reek of ozone.

Force let it come, skyscrapers scrape rents of the final Apocalypse in the sky, dream rivers splashing color across solid roads and buildings, AMOK art vitality stirring passions of metal blur by writhing in mineral lusts. Walls of glass melt OFF THE TRACK OFF a billion crazed eyes, the sidewalks run feet and tires, chimneys ejaculate blue tunnels break out graffiti village pulled across the sky in flaming colors.

Skyscrapers scrape rents of blue and white paint from the sky, the rivers swirl with color, nitrous ochres and reds eat through the bridges, falling into the rivers, splashing colors across warehouses and piers and roads and buildings, AMOK art floods inorganic molds, stirring passions and metal and glass, steel girders writhing in mineral lusts burst form their concrete covers, wall of glass melt and burn with madness in a billion crazed eyes, bridges buck cars and trucks into the rivers, the sidewalks run ahead faster and faster, energy ground down into sidewalks and streets by billions of feet and tires erupts from manholes and tunnels, breaks out with volcanic force:

LET IT COME DOWN

Caught in New York beneath the animals of the village, the Piper pulled down the sky.

Pan from an Antioch Mosaic

The Great God Pan is Dead

But as William Burroughs noted, he seems to be lurking behind much of the creative energy of the world, so maybe he is not so dead after all.

In honor of that creative energy, I initiate my art blog. This is a spin-off from my "anything goes" blog, Wha'Happen. I have copied all my art postings from the old blog to here, and will continue cross-posting for a while. But eventually, Wha'Happen will be devoted to oil, finance, cycling, books, etc., while The Great God Pan Is Dead will handle all the art, with only occasional cross-postings.

The Great God Pan is Dead is growing out of my effort to educate myself about the Houston art scene. So if you are a Houston artist or gallerist, keep me in the loop.

(Cross-posted at Wha'Happen)