Untitled Heroic

This project is a yearlong online written and visual document (blog) of the final year of candidacy in the MFA Program (Sculpture) at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. April 2010-2011

Blog Link
Print catalogue

April 30, 2011

“Definitions have dissolved, form is dead, ideas are in excess, time is scarce, body-lucid exhaustion. Where did the weekend go and why don't I have a weekend? What is a weekend? Is it the end of the week or the beginning ?

Traditional Soviet childhood sporting attempts:
ice skating (broke right wrist. broke left elbow.)
gymnastics.
ballroom dancing. (could never follow partner and repeat steps without making them up each time. )
ballet (pronounced ballerina as barelina. actually dreamed of being one. hated the training and repetition of steps, but loved the music and the stretching.to this day can do splits and many ballet steps easily). “

April 3, 2011

“Here we are, at your graciously built station, in an elegant city of precious ideas, not letting go. A single second away, a second of a second of your time, let me gather an eyelash and blow. Away. Critically acclaimed work and I will not show you my flesh.

Perhaps it matters perhaps it will not and does it occur and does it roll off your tongue when you say my name. No no it doesn't, I guess it doesn't. It catches it in mid air: mid letter: mid word and you jump high and rule out and screen for mistakes and hop to it and rule out failure. Fail you must at something and winning is an option.

Achieving the highest and appropriate, my lyrical writing isn't good enough. The turns and postings and my own discomfort. Here we are, leaving behind a sense of learning and newness.

I must be gone and then I just continue.“

May 9, 2010

“Alienation, estrangement, the mundane meaninglessness, profound boredom, ritualization of being, self-imposed isolation, living paralysis, the inevitable hypnosis, the stupor of existence, the extreme tedium of duration, the space of life’s physical and mental entrapment, the inevitability of disaster, the passage of time noticed, the blanket of hidden anxiety and fear , the woman’s absence....What is to be done?….When you have no restrictions and no responsibilities, are you really free or are you always forever bound to your one true non-free being-yourself?”

”How do you run and keep running from those memories ? How do you stop fragility and weakness, brittle- snap snap, a flaw in character, easy to break damage or harm, delicate, not strong, secure unlikely to sustain any severe strain or stresses in a weak or useless bodily state…

Open to emotional wounds or Likely to fall collapse or sway subject to spontaneous change .. brief existence……apt to change.. unsteady unsure of intent. Having a brief half life.

Your memories. She stares she cooks washes shops walks draws fucks. “

October 23, 2010

“Manifest: some destiny, please
To not consume it all
Instructions: to fly and bleed for us, there is no time, like, yes, now, like Sweat and cry
Softer falling leaves, mambo italiano, mexican bekafast
Slavoy Zizek on empty stomach and asymmetrical haircut
Nervous tension, anxiety and full blossoming
Let us pioneer and return
overheating
Memories flood the floor
Stopping to patronize
Occasionally and unusually greater than?”

“Ask me. What to do?
what to learn and to know and how shall I know anyway?
Internalized patriarchy, they told me. Feminist affect?
How much and WHO? Directly at death, stare and realize. This is you
And this is me.And perhaps, that is exactly how it is. And that is all
WHO needs to say this again? Sex has become the enemy, don't intrude
I came upon this article" how to collect female artists for a new collector
Let's begin
Standing.
Academically?
My words are falling, and pausing against the tidal waves of the mud Always, UP THE CREEK, WILLING TO breathe. Reward me or not.”

”Katyushka, Katenka, Katrusya, little bits
Being itself, being let it be, in the being of it, let it be
Revisiting my own gestural ideas and professional lingering in my mouth. What did I do? Proposals magnifying my need to beg the world. One at a time. More, just a little bit more. Just this time perhaps: just this once I receive one cookie, one! Beg borrow steal and I slip into miracles, readings and theories and constant flow. Remember this, now. I search and search for empowerment, everywhere I look I am confronted by laughter, laughing and crying she confirms sadness and no, I'm not lonely at all, I am quite sane and I march ahead, my failed revolutions in my skirts, heavy stepping over your incompetence and impotence, deal with it and stop asking me
to seduce you, no, nothing is good or over and nothing is
as nothing does it is time for that revolution
who says? she says
the wounds are deep, they hurt,
and always on time….”

April 9, 2010

“Sometimes, there are other fruits in bed. Like that time, I found a rotten apple, once green and juicy. The acid smell of decay didn't bother her either, she likes the perfume of rotting apple flesh. Brown and green still. It tasted bitter. I threw it away and she cried for a long time. Another time, one afternoon, it was sunny and hot, dust in the air, she found a peach there and ate it, it was warm and fleshy, fire red with yellow specks . Very pretty , I said and found an "I love NY" T-shirt between the third and forth blanket. Who's? His? It's small. Its tiny. I put it on my head and stood up. I could see rooftops and red bricks in the window, standing like that on her bed, in my underwear, blue pastel, some torn lace. Old pillows. That time I ate a stake, bloody and raw. I like raw meat. Ancestors call out, as I google blood type diet. Her blood type is O.

There was an orange in her bed. Yes, an orange fruit. Citrus. Also, Leonard's cookies and a cup of coffee. Take out coffee. Still warm. In a white paper cup, with a black, plastic lid: shiny. I saw a ketchup bottle

there too. Half used. Under all the blankets she uses to warm herself up on cold, unexpected nights. Count them: one, two, three, four. The one acting as a cover is the softest, laying on top of the others. Soft, pastel green, satin piping. It is very large and covers the whole bed, lingering beyond it's borders. Sometimes, I act as If I don't know and hide under all those covers. I hide and act normal.”

“Post-relational automatics and I contrive this to be all:
tiny wishes coming true, everything is riding on this one small plastic candle, the light of which highlights my unspoken gratitude. A piece of cheesecake, on the house, it tastes of the years full of opportunities: smallest details and extreme loveliness of the future, promised and forgiven. Thank you for all and to be and to come again, and to feel once again for all your true roaming hearts. Once upon a time, once again and surely, neverending, the fairytale starts……”

“How personal would you like me to be with you? Tomorrow you will know what I mean in general. Five Postcards. Black and white, seem vintage, but it's Cindy Sherman's "Film stills". Also some newspaper clippings: photographs of recent rebels and revolutions and heroism. Failed all. I was born like this.

Consumed, assimilated, burned down. Repeating body gestures I have seen in all of her eighty five years here, I beg her to start dancing and get out of that bed. She enjoys it and complies with my demands. Orange and red hardback covers of books beckon me. What about Cosmo magazine, September 1987? Were you there? "How to look good naked": I read aloud and twirl a little, slightly to the left of her center.”

“I simply indulge. There is her stance and a helping of generosity and my mild headache. Freshly squeezed Orange juice for breakfast: two glasses. Carefully constructed lies. I beg of her, do not reveal my secrets and illusions of grandeur.

Sometimes, I sip my juice and forgive her indiscretions. Old Vodka bottle, nearly empty and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, brand new. Frozen face skin and luscious intellectually stimulating conversation, I am going to live here. Perhaps tomorrow.

Liberty leading the people: she said, impending doom foreboding
said to be true
to what end this happens to be true
did I find…..”