It Takes All Kinds/ Metissages

 

This is an old text I wrote that I happened upon yesterday:

metissage:  different cultures and peoples interconnecting, mingling, setting off things in each other.  Human life can be a “gumbo” of sympathetic splendor.  It takes all kinds.  Our variety keeps us strong.

If we were all the same, all duplicates of each other, then this world would be poisoned.

To those of us who hold this view we can only stand aghast at our opposites:  only one good nation, only one good religion, white supremacy, male supremacy, the rich and famous are good while the poor and struggling are looked down on, “pretty people” are good and ”ugly people” are bad etc. , etc.

September 20, 1998 (notes in the inside front cover of a small sketchbook)

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These are themes which I’ve returned to over and over again.  I did one piece a “Declaration of Interdependence.”  Let’s co-exist at least!

Breaking these barriers, is a really powerful idea.  It can make the “small-minded” very upset or angry.  Yet, it’s a key direction to explore within the struggle toward “peace on Earth.”  Vive la difference!

The more we move from recognition to acceptance to appreciation to celebration of each other, the better things can be.  Then too, we could evolve in our attitudes toward the earth itself, toward plant and animal life.

We could learn or develop better attitudes towards various “constructs” from nations to religions to economic situations.  We could improve our attitudes toward such human realities as age, gender and health.

What would this world be like if the barriers between nations, faiths and peoples were reduced or “broken down”?  What if more people (and “tribes” of peoples) interacted with nature and the earth more naturally?  We could live together far more truly than we are now, November 6, 2009.

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PS

Looking around for relevant sites on the web I’ve found metissage often (but not always) refers to “mixed marriages” or relationships, inter-racial (and other?)

There are other references toward metissage in art and music.  I recall a reference toward this in Surrealism, but I can’t recall exactly where.

What I’m getting at is not really “globalization.”  In this, too often, money “trickles up” to the rich instead of spreading in other directions.  Yet I am an internationalist and consider myself some sort of citizen of the world.

Nor is it just multiculturalism or simple “brotherhood.”  I’m trying to explore something more complex, mysterious and poetic.  Then eventually, I hope to go into just how all this relates to art and artists.

http://www.zeleza.com/events/african-events/m-tissages-cultural-exchanges

http://www.proz.com/kudoz/french_to_english/other/13400-m%C3%A9tissage.html

http://www.mumi.org/metissages/en/artificiel/vignette.html

ALSO:

Recently I noticed a similarity (with these ideas) in the plant kingdom.  It’s often better to let the species grow wild and intermingle naturally rather than try to have their evolution controlled or directed.

Political Art/ Politics Within Art (take one)

Malcontents

The following statement was written a few years ago as a statement for State of the Union, an exhibit at the Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It is one of many I’ve written on these topics.  I present it here as a recent example and (as such) fairly concise. :

Only a small portion of my visual art responds directly to current events.  Most of it that does is more subtly political.

To me, making “political art” is like making collages or wire sculptures.  It’s fine when I’m inspired.  I don’t want to force myself to do so or to have any “quotas.”

The works that I entered into this exhibit are most of my more successful political art work.  Ranging from 1991 to 2007, I spoke through various means of “flat art.”

Just because it’s on paper or canvas doesn’t mean that it can’t touch people, move them or even help wake them up.  Art can be a powerful thing.  Authentic art can “political” without trying to be.

Through Surrealism, I learned the difference between “mere artistic propaganda” and authentic works of art informed by politics.

Artistic propaganda has a hard time matching (or keeping up with) the real propaganda which all of us face every day.

To be informed by politics is to seek out, to become aware of and maybe somehow to know the hard truths of this country, of this world.  To be aware is to beware.

It’s a struggle these days, to seek out truth and to see the lies and disguises for what they are.  Art Galleries, theatres, coffee houses, museums and other venues can play an important part in this.

In 2004, I helped organize a huge “political art exhibit” at the Zeitgeist in Detroit.  Working with Eric Mesko, Jim Puntigam and others, a sprawling collection was installed.  Part One (“Reviving the Tree of Liberty”) was before the presidential election.  Part Two (“Restoring the Tree of Liberty”) took place after the election and tried to respond to its outcome.

There was a huge bunker.  There were “mock voting booths” (a cynical voting booth, a Surrealist voting booth etc.).  There were works by many artists as well as collaborations.

To me, it was in part a sort of “laboratory” wherein some of us experimented to get a more complex sense of the relation of politics to art and between the artist and their “duty to reality.”

This exhibit gave me a sense of a part that art should be playing in this world yet, largely, is not.  I’ve long had a strong sense that (both here in the U.S. and totally worldwide) that art and artists are not being allowed to play the part they should be playing.  In fact, one of the many reasons why things are so bad, why trouble is epidemic, is precisely that.

If there was a massive and sustained Renaissance of true art everywhere it would be a strong force for positive change.  The deep artists, the true artists have long been ignored, silenced and marginalized.

There’s even evidence that the devoted artist is one of the last “minority groups” which has scarcely begun to fight for their rights, to make their voices heard.

The reasons for this are many.  We’re spread over so many mediums: visual arts, cinema, music, poetry, theatre, dance, writing and more.  We’re often put upon or exploited by those who should be our friends and allies.  Some art forms are more expensive to make and some less so but they’re all difficult to display, in ways.  Sometimes people can’t tell what’s good and what’s bad, what works and what doesn’t.  True art and “entertainment” are often involved in an unhealthy relationship.  When art speaks deeper truths about what it means to be alive, to be human in this world today, this can inspire fear or disdain.  Power protects its lies.      This list is only the “tip of the iceberg.” 

I believe that this artist’s Renaissance could easily start here, in the Detroit area.  If we can get things going here, it could take off and spread to other places.  Ironically, it was Detroit calling itself the “Renaissance Center” and playing up the city’s coming Renaissance, which got me to believe this.

They’re having a “Renaissance” yet the artists are often treated badly.  Yet Detroit (and neighboring cities) have vast stores of talent, energy and heart.  It’s often tempting to give up but many of us plunge ahead.  Let’s get something going.  Much is possible if we only try. 

An Artist’s Statement from Maurice Greenia, Jr.     (June 16, 2007)

This gallery includes several of my works including “WW3?” a violent, panoramic drawing done in the early 1990’s (for “Gulf war One”) and “Anti-Human Rays From Outer Space..” a fairly large oil painting:

http://www.thegalleryproject.com/exhibitarchive/state/state.html

a review:

http://www.thegalleryproject.com/review_archive/archive/021_stateunion.html

Os Gemeos Mural, New York City 2009

Os Gemeos Mural, August 2009

This is my photo of the Houston Street mural by 35-year old twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandalfo.  They’re from Brazil and call their art group Os Gemeos.  I sense a lot of Brazilian flavor in their work.

They designed the mural and did a good part of the painting.  They did have some help with the actual painting, forming a sort of “art team.”

I ran across their mural when I was in New York.  I really like it a lot.  I just got around to searching for pictures and writing about it on “the web.”  I found a lot of really good stuff.

This includes a history of the mural space from Martha Cooper.  She’s a well known photographer of New York graffiti. 

I remember seeing other good murals there too.  This space has always had interesting work.  Layers of good art are painted over other good art.

There are also photos of it being created, photos of the Pandolfo brothers, a New York Times slide show and much more.  I took other photos as well and may post those, eventually.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/arts/design/04mural.html

good photos:

http://hypebeast.com/2009/07/os-gemeos-mural-nyc-completed/

includes images of the mural being painted:

http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/2009/07/13/os-gemeos-mural-in-new-york-city/

the history of the space from  Martha Cooper:

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2009/07/martha_cooper_o.php

dedications (R.I.P. Dash Snow, etc.):

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/07/os_gemeos_dedicate_their_new_m.html

http://blog.theartcollectors.com/2009/07/16/os-gemos-finish-nyc-mural-with-dedication-to-dash-snow/

Other work:

http://deitch.com/artists/sub.php?artistId=30

Belle Isle September 12, 1998

On September 12, 1998, there was an odd and mysterious protest on Belle Isle in Detroit.  I was part of it and share these photos I took for the first time.  There’s one more photo which I’ll try to add later.

I determined that it must have been 1998 due to several clues.   My huge street art project on the Hudson’s building in downtown Detroit was nearing the end.  It was imploded the next month in October.

Some say the newspaper strike was “settled” in 1997 but aspects of it carried into 1998 including Judge O’Meara’s decision.

This was a sort of “Wheel of Misfortune.”  Note “No News or Free Press Wanted Here” sign (below, left).

Also, the Wise Fool puppet group was involved.  They started in 1998 so this would have been one of their earlier actions/performances.  The medusa-headed puppet in this photo appears on the “zeitgeist.net” website below.

I believe that this is the late, great Gerald Hairston (left in yellow shirt).  He was a “master gardener” involved in his own sort of green activism.

It was the day after Detroit’s Dally in the Alley party.  We marched across the Belle Isle Bridge onto the island.  As we marched, we played music, made noise and sang.   I played kazoo.

Belle Isle is sort of Detroit’s “Central Park.”  I love it.  It’s great.  I used to take the bus there when I was young, but I get there rarely now.  If it was more “central” I’d get there more often.

Other issues (besides the newspaper strike) included Detroit Casinos, environmentalism, problems with capitalism and being in favor of a sort of “general humanism.”  I remember it as a wild and magical thing.

If anyone was there and has any information, comments or corrections, I’d be glad to hear from you.

Judge O’Meara rules against striking newspaper workers:

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/07/us/national-news-briefs-newspaper-strikers-lose-detroit-rehiring-appeal.html

More information on that newspaper strike:

http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=7975

The Wise Fool Puppet Group:

http://www.zeitgeist.net/wfca/wfpi.htm

http://www.wisefoolnewmexico.org/history.html

On Gerald Hairston and Grace Lee Boggs:

http://www.kuidaosumi.com/JKwriting/obondetroit.html

Distant Relatives

When that which seems to be related suddenly disconnects, we fall away, disoriented.  What makes us uneasy can sometimes be good for us.  We get a taste of the jarring embrace of opposites.  This can be frightening, or it can be beautiful, even delicious.

Resolving contraries, neither “this” nor “that” can be a program in itself.

The so-called impossible can hold many strange attractions.

Day and night, joy and despair, life and death, nature and technology are all distant relatives, branches of the same family tree.

Perhaps not all contraries are related.  Or if they are, they’re related in strange ways, which many of us cannot imagine.

Dreams can sweep you up, like being borne aloft by a whirlwind.  In sleep, the fall rarely injures us.

Some of us search out these mysteries, even live for them.

Love is infinite and it replicates itself with abandon.

Franklin Rosemont Memorial in Chicago

A group Leaving the Memorial at Newberry Library

I took the Greyhound to Chicago for the memorial event for Franklin Rosemont.  It was on July 11 at the Newberry library.

It went from noon until 3pm or so.  A lot of Franklin’s friends spoke including many surrealists, historians and other friends.

I didn’t take many notes or photos.  I did draw a few pictures.  There was a large crowd.  There were many stories about and thoughts on Franklin and his life.  Don LaCoss talked about a shared affinity for the great Bugs Bunny.  John Bracey, Jr. talked of their college days studying with St. Clair Drake and forming an “anti-poetry club.”  Joseph Jablonski remembered his old friend and read a poem he’d  recently written.  Paul Garon spoke of his love for Black music and the Blues. 

All the speakers seemed to talk of Franklin from their own perspectives, to note some of the ways that he touched them, inpired them, moved them.  Some of the others were Natalia Fernandez Segarra, Noel Ignatiev, David Roediger, Paul Buhle, Peter Linebaugh, Gale Ahrens and Warren Leming.

The program pamphlet included a fine quote from Franklin on the surrealist promise (in part): “This myth, revolutionary, liberatory, exalting–and therefore fundamentally different from other myths–rises from the ashes of the old orders, to announce a new life, a surrealist life.” (yes) “…preparing for the dictatorship of the imagination and heralding the triumph of mad love…”

Afterward, some of us repaired to a local restaurant, for more stories, more visiting.  It was great to see Penelope Rosemont and everyone else.  Some, I’d met before.  Others, I’d written to and/or read their work, but was only meeting them for the first time. 

An excellent remembrance by his friend (and fellow surrealist) Joseph Jablonski:

http://www.yardbird.com/reader_franklin_rosemont.htm

Also:

http://www.surrealistmovement-usa.org/pages/rosemont.html

http://charleshkerr.com/author/1/

http://artremedy20.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/franklin-rosemont-1943-2009/

http://artremedy20.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/franklin-rosemont-and-surrealism/

For A Wilder Laughter

the laughing man in the wood

For a Wilder Laughter!!!

    From: Maurice Greenia, Jr.    June 7, 2007

Of the many serious problems facing the world today, some are rarely mentioned.  One of these is the severe shortage of humor, good jokes, the absolute comic and their glorious residue.

This residue is, of course, human laughter.

There is nothing wrong with smiling or chuckling.  A little humor is better than no humor at all (or ill humor).  Yet, throughout much of this earth, a sense of humor is merely a rumor.

It can be a serious problem for things to be taken too seriously.  Conversely, it can also cause trouble to not take things seriously enough!

Not everyone has the wisdom (and sense of balance) to know the difference.

We believe that if more people laughed more often, it would be a far better world.  Moreover, if more people laughed harder, it would also help.

The intensity and the duration of laughter must not be discounted.

Most books, movies, TV programs, songs, stage plays and jokes provide only brief bursts of laughter.  One thinks it was a “funny show” if one laughs a few times and smiles a few times.

Some of us have nostalgia for those golden days of fierce, even riotous laughter.  Picture yourself in a cinema theatre.  The lights dim and darken.  The audience is as one, in a cloak of anticipation.

The film begins.  Then, from beginning to end, the audience (and you too) just roar and scream with laughter.  The film provides a few spots where one can rest and catch one’s breath.  Yet soon enough, the waves of laughter arise again.  Many people weep.   The tears of joy run down their faces.  Some fall out of their chairs and roll on the floor, hitting it with their fists.  The ushers have to help them back into their seats.

This utopian scenario could soon become a reality.  It only needs to be given half a chance.   In every corner of the world, through every means,  the music of laughter will arise.  Some of us are more susceptible than others.  Some laugh more easily.   Some dream more easily.

Yet if the force of the comic is strong enough, fluid enough, free enough, it is not easily resisted.   Even the sternest of beings can fall under its sway.

Just as important are the targets of this laughter.  Those forces of hatred, exploitation, miserabilism, evil, stupidity, insensitivity, violence, cruelty and indifference often receive a boisterous welcome.  The emperor’s new clothes are shown up to be the nakedness that they are.

Laughter can reveal the truth and throw it back into the face of the lie!

Don’t be afraid to let go and laugh.  Be open to it.   Seek for it.

 (thanks to Dreamers Versus Dangers, Detroit Branch)

Jacques Karamanoukian, take one

a Jacques Karamanoukian drawing (on a found flyer)

        

1.  

Jacques Karamanoukian was born in Paris, France in March of 1940.  He did his military service and studied literature at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1966 he moved to the U.S.A.  He did his graduate studies at the University of Michigan in the late 1960’s.

He ended up teaching high school French for many years.  This was his “day job” (educator).

He had a great love of reading, of words.  Visual art was another great passion.  At 29, he started to bring work over from France to exhibit in Ann Arbor.

For nearly 30 years Jacques exhibited the art that he cared about and believed in.

He was self taught himself, as an artist and as an appreciator of art.  He was especially drawn to outsider art, surrealism, art brut and other realms of purity, intensity and EXTREMES.   He developed an amazing and highly tuned eye.

Yet, as he often told me, he could love an artist’s work but if he didn’t like them as a person as well—he wouldn’t show them.

It reminds me of Marcel Duchamp’s saying “I don’t believe in art.  I believe in artists.”

Jacques always respected the artist WITH their work.  He’d pay poets and performers (out of his own pocket) at his art openings.

He was often generous in buying work from painters who were “down on their luck.”

He had good taste in writing and poetry.  He was a writer himself.  He wrote poetry and articles in French and English.  Some of his profiles included Gerome Kamrowski, musician Faruq Z. Bey and Swiss artist Louis Soutter.

He was a great reader.  He loved music—especially jazz and blues.  He had a strong connection with “be bop” (Monk, Bird, Max, Dizzy and the rest).  He also loved the music of Cuba.

In Ann Arbor, he had an gallery called “Le Minotaure.”  Later,  he started “Galerie Jacques.” 

In 1993 had a solo show “Noir et Bleu” in Detroit.  His own work had been shown in France and Canada as well as here.

2.  

It was like this: for a long time, I rarely got to Ann Arbor.  In 1992 or so, the more experimental/outsider Detroit artists started to get to know Jacques.  Then, I got up there a lot.

It was mainly the Heidelberg Project which helped bring us all together.  Jacques connected well with Tyree Guyton and Karen (his wife at that time).  But he connected even more strongly with Tyree’s grandfather, Sam Mackey—and with his artwork.   It was due to Jacques’ work that Sam Mackey became a well regarded outsider artist in Europe.  He got to see this success in his lifetime.

We got to Ann Arbor more and Jacques got to Detroit more.  Everything started to come together.  He’d always shown Michigan artists at his galleries (as well as European).  Now he found a whole other group of artists.

The 1990’s saw many excellent exhibitions and programs at Galerie Jacques.  It was our salon, our café.  I’d find a ride (or  take the train up) to go to an opening, make art, look at art books, discuss art or current events and generally “shoot the bull.”

In 1996 I showed at the Musee de la Creation Franche in Begles, France.   I went to the opening and got to spend a week in Paris as well.  Despite my extremely poor French language skills, it was a great experience.

I got to meet Jacques’ brothers and their families.  I also met some important friends/artists—especially Gerard Sendrey, Claudine Goux and Jaber.  Jacques showed me all around (often translating for me).  It was just amazing.

He retired from teaching, closed Galerie Jacques and started working with us at Zeitgeist in Detroit.

In Spring of 1999, Jacques organized two more shows in Paris at Galerie Art Tisane and Galerie Halle Saint-Pierre.  These brought his European artists and his American artists together in Paris.  The latter consisted of ten Europeans and ten Americans–plus Jacques.

He hoped to open a Galerie Jacques in Paris and continue the trans-continental explorations.

Sadly, he became ill with cancer and in May of 2002, he died.  This was a hard loss for many of us.

Jacques Karamanoukian was a pioneer in promoting art brut and outsider art.  He befriended and promoted many who are well known now and who will be: Sam Mackey, Jaber, Claudine Goux, Gerard Sendrey, Stani Nitkowski,  J.J. Sanfourche, the late Rosemarie Koczy (plus many of the artists who have shown at the Zeitgeist).

For me (and I’m sure others) he forced me to examine more deeply the true meaning of art, what it means to be an artist and what the true possibilities of art are.

Jacques was always about digging deeper, pushing the envelope, taking chances, going too far, searching for magic, harnessing forces of love and adventure and just generally trying to do good work.  Yes, to do good work (and maybe even better than that) is a big part of life.

We at Zeitgeist tried to fill part of the void which his loss leaves us with.  Our gallery is closed now, but our “loosely knit” collective still has a few plans.

I let Jacques’ spirit and the residue of his ideas, his attitude inform my life and work.

As Gerard Sendrey wrote: “le grand Jacques, Karamanoukian.”

June 17, 2003/ Updated July 7, 2009

(This is the first in a series of articles about my great friend, the late Jacques Karamanoukian.  He was a great guy and a big influence on many of us, here and in France.  We often wonder what he would say and what he would do.  I miss him every day.  He was a true artist and a great supporter of art and of his fellow artists.)

The Zeitgeist arts space is gone.  We trying to keep our website going though.  Jay Pinka on Jacques:

http://zeitgeistdetroit.org/about/jacques.html

Access to articles by Arwulf Arwulf, Manon Meilgaard & myself.  Click on stuff until it’s good/large enough to read:

http://www.zeitgeistdetroit.org/about/jk_articles.html

from “My Last Sigh”

 

These are a few sections from My Last Sigh (The Autobiography of Luis Bunuel).  The translation is by Abigail Israel. 

The book came out in France in 1982.  The translation is copyrighted 1983 (the year Bunuel died).  I re-read it last year. 

Bunuel’s a great filmaker.  He was born in Spain but he made most of his films in Mexico and France.  He worked in cinema from 1929 to 1977.  Surrealism was an important part of his life.

Fom My Last Sigh:

“Your freedom is only a phantom that travels the world in a cloak of fog.  You try to grab hold of it, but it will always slip away.  All you’ll have left is a dampness on your fingers.”

“All of us were supporters of a certain concept of revolution, and although the surrealists didn’t consider themselves terrorists, they were constantly fighting a society they despised.  Their principle weapon wasn’t guns, of course; it was scandal.  Scandal was a potent agent of revelation, capable of exposing such social crimes as the exploitation of one man by another, colonialist imperialism, religious tyranny- in sum, all the secret and odious underpinnings of a system that had to be destroyed.  The real purpose of surrealism was not to create a new literary, artistic, or even philosophical movement, but to explode the social order, to transform life itself. ”

“….There’s no doubt that surrealism was a cultural and artistic success;  but these were precisely the areas of  least interest to the surrealists.  Their aim was not to establish a glorious place for themselves in the world of art and literature, but to change the world,  to transform life itself.  This was our essential purpose,  but one good look around is evidence enough of our failure.

Needless to say,  any other outcome was impossible.  Today,  we see the place of surrealism in the world as infinitesimal.  Like the earth itself, devoured by monumental dreams, we were nothing- just a small group of insolent intellectuals who argued interminably in cafes and published a journal; a handful of idealists,  easily divided where action was concerned.  And yet my three-year sojourn in the exalted -and yes, chaotic- ranks of the movement changed my life.  I treasure that access to the depths of the self which I so yearned for, that call to the irrational, to the impulses that spring from the dark side of the soul.  It was the surrealists who first launched this appeal with a sustained force and courage, with insolence and playfulness and an obstinate dedication to fight everything repressive in the conventional wisdom.  Where these aspects of the movement are concerned, I see nothing to repudiate.” 

“Another enduring aspect of surrealism is my discovery of the profound conflict between the prevailing moral code and my own personal morality, born of instinct and experience.  Until I became part of the movement, I never imagined such warfare, but now I see it as an indispensable condition of life itself.  More than the artistic innovations or the refinements of my tastes and ideas, the aspect of surrealism that has remained a part of me all these years is a clear and inviolate moral exigency.  This loyalty to a specific set of moral precepts isn’t easy to maintain; it’s constantly coming into conflict with egotism, vanity, greed, exhibitionism, facileness, and just plain forgetfulness.  Sometimes I’ve succumbed to temptations and violated my own rules, but only, I think, in matters of small importance.  My passage through the heart of the surrealist movement helped firm up my resolve, which is perhaps, at bottom, the essential thing.”

Franklin Rosemont and Surrealism

Franklin Rosemont was a great influence on me and my work.  My encounter with his work changed my life.  It was inspiring to know that there were people living Surrealism in the late Twentieth Century.

The whole “Chicago School” of Surrealism was a formative influence.  This consisted of Franklin and Penelope Rosemont and their circle.  Some, like Paul Garon, were in Chicago.  Others, like Joseph Jablonski, were elsewhere.

They also kept in touch with Surrealism around the world.  It was always toward working toward true change absolutely for the better, everywhere, in all the corners of the earth.   Part of this is to wake people up, to reveal and unleash certain dreams and mysteries.

Surrealism deepened my resolve to go against the grain, to be an outsider and generally not to “play the game.” 

In ways they also helped to inform and deepen my interests.  They turned me on to so many great books and artists.  They had a Surrealist version of  a  sort of merciless cultural criticism.  I’d often laugh out loud at their critiques of the Elmer Fudds of the “art world” and the “poetry scene.”

They also turn their clear-eyed criticism toward reality.  Truth is not cut and dried.  Things are not as they should be.  People are asleep even when awake and/or wearing designer blinders.  As I always say: Incorrigible Utopianists Amalgamated!

(My good friend, the late Jacques Karamanoukian, had a similar sort of revolutionary spirit suffused in black humor and wide-eyed realism.   He had a good knowledge of Surrealism and we discuss various artists, poets and manifestos.)

I knew Franklin Rosemont better from his writings than through my few meetings with him.  I never got there as often as I’d liked  due to the distance between Detroit and Chicago and the fact that I don’t drive automobiles. 

Also, I  rarely use the telephone.    I admit to some degree of shyness and “loner tendencies.”  Yet, due to a long and faithful postal correspondence, I’ve regarded Franklin and Penelope Rosemont as true comrades and old friends. 

We worked together on a few projects, primarily a Surrealist declaration defending Detroit artist Tyree Guyton.  They wrote it but I did some research and sent some photos.  He’d just had four of his wild “art houses” demolished by the city of Detroit.

I think that (pretty early on) I tried to find them.  I got to their house but no one seemed to be home.  I think it was on their mailbox I saw posted: Zorro and Tarzana Laughingthrush.

The graces and the disgraces will continue to wrestle, engage, dance in opposite directions and perhaps enter into conversation.

Again, all my condolences to Penelope and to Franklin’s friends, family and fellow Surrealists. 

http://www.counterpunch.org/rosemont04162009.html

http://artremedy20.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/surrealism/