Visual Arts, Columbia University, New York

This course examines ways of looking and ways of seeing, both personally & professionally as artists and in a larger cultural context. Through field trips to contemporary art and other cultural sites, conversations with visiting critical thinkers and practicioners, readings, discussions, and visual & written responses, we will examine how we look, think, act, create and respond--critically questioning our own artistic practices and ways of looking at the world.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

What Happens? (JOW)



















The Thing Gods

By Justin Walker

(Response to Objects)

Leaning on an aged Infiniti,

stoic,

impressed by the persistence of the moon,

I watched a June bug tear through the wings of a Monarch,

struck by the tragedy caused by merely shifting a base.

It’ll never fly again,

the same way.


Victory…they say is imminent.

I say things point to survival…still.

Search for Pharaohs.


Asked a dead king about the meaning of scarabs and wings…on tomb walls.

He said “It was nothing.”

Like it didn’t have a name.

Lady at work said it wasn’t complicated,

like she could see the pain glaring through a young and highly stylized smile.


And it hurt to know that she knew

About the bottle,

and the vicious thing,

and helpless thing,

who lay dying,

wondering why the thing Gods decided to wreck a life

already expected to end so soon,

…in butterfly time.





Ego & Hubris ~ The Tipping Point.

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