on beauty
[distracted]
It was a glorious day, cool and sunny. It was a perfect day to watch people, when everyone comes out from wintery shadows to bask in the sun. I stopped by Starbucks, a pause on my way to drop off a DVD at the video store, a break from being sick at home. Upstairs at a table overlooking all who enters and leaves, I saw a beautiful profile, across the sofa, against the wall. Closely shaved head and beard, and with a tan-coloured face that blends in contrast to the boring beige walls, I watched him type on his laptop. When he got up, I saw yellow birds on his t-shirt flew by, breaking his profile with the imperfection of his brow. I watched him passing the student, who sat in another corner with a large black binder, furiously scribbling, with a blue highlighter in his ear. His nervous shaking leg made me look at him, and admire the casual neglect of his body, imperfect but driven by a naive immortality of youth. His t-shirt screamed out red letters, “save your soul”, and I was reminded how young he is. My gaze dropped to the floor below, and I saw tousled, unconcerned hair, the slim silver rim of sunglasses wrapped around a head, around the wires protruding from his ears, playing music to his soul. A large knapsack rested upon his broad shoulders and wide chest. He looked like he could carry me and I wondered what he looked like, face to face.
I don't always know what moves me, and sometimes it seems like nothing does. In the past months, Y has been acquiring art, pieces that move him in a way I don't always understand. From scouring websites, I see photos of artwork I am not quite sure I like. And then they arrive, and then I see that simple Yoshitomo Nara drawing is actually exquisite and note that the Barry McGee piece separated from its original cluster is screaming orange at me. They are beautiful in a way I cannot explain, and I didn't see looking at the website. They speak to Y in an incomprehensible language, which I only vaguely understand when my eyes look at our walls contemplating what the artists may be thinking.
Since we've painted the living and dining rooms, we have been searching for art to cover the barren walls. Y has been pretty decisive about what he wants, whereas I know what I could like, but cannot find something worth acquiring. It's pretty hard for me to commit to something that seems both permanent and ephemeral to me, a piece of art that I want to see all the time, to live with, to spend my time on, to not grow bored of. I could fill the walls like Heipel, who's home is like a brilliant salon of paintings and drawings that captured his interest. I realize his walls tell me more about him than his caustic wit and barbs. I feel just a little bit closer to him when I admire what he has put together and collected. I don't know how to fill my walls (or at least my sections of the walls). Perhaps I am afraid to tell the world who I can be, perhaps I am afraid that I won't have enough space to show all the pieces I'd get, or perhaps I just simply don't know who I am and so cannot find something that moves me. But if that was the case, then I wouldn't have thought Rodolfo's aria in the second act of Luisa Miller was sung so touchingly, beautifully, the other night at the opera or the last shot of Tony Leung in Happy Together on the train in HK was so achingly beautiful in its nostalgia or how coldly beautiful it was, skiing dangerously across a frozen lake on a bright sunny winter day. And certainly wouldn't have thought how hot that Chinese guy in Accounting looks in his tight dress pants, riding with me in the elevator one Friday afternoon. (Yes, I have a new crush at work.)
Of the paintings I have been admiring lately, the $2.5 million Rioplle abstract makes me want to be a millionaire, or be married to one. For those things in reach, I am not moved enough to buy the pieces, the beauty escapes me, while the prices do not. How do you invest in art, in the beauty of a canvas, in someone else's imagination? My gaze won't stop moving in a different direction, seeing a different profile, being distracted by a subtle movement, obscured by a different angle. Nothing moves me, everything moves me. I can't have it all, but I want to.
It was a glorious day, cool and sunny. It was a perfect day to watch people, when everyone comes out from wintery shadows to bask in the sun. I stopped by Starbucks, a pause on my way to drop off a DVD at the video store, a break from being sick at home. Upstairs at a table overlooking all who enters and leaves, I saw a beautiful profile, across the sofa, against the wall. Closely shaved head and beard, and with a tan-coloured face that blends in contrast to the boring beige walls, I watched him type on his laptop. When he got up, I saw yellow birds on his t-shirt flew by, breaking his profile with the imperfection of his brow. I watched him passing the student, who sat in another corner with a large black binder, furiously scribbling, with a blue highlighter in his ear. His nervous shaking leg made me look at him, and admire the casual neglect of his body, imperfect but driven by a naive immortality of youth. His t-shirt screamed out red letters, “save your soul”, and I was reminded how young he is. My gaze dropped to the floor below, and I saw tousled, unconcerned hair, the slim silver rim of sunglasses wrapped around a head, around the wires protruding from his ears, playing music to his soul. A large knapsack rested upon his broad shoulders and wide chest. He looked like he could carry me and I wondered what he looked like, face to face.
I don't always know what moves me, and sometimes it seems like nothing does. In the past months, Y has been acquiring art, pieces that move him in a way I don't always understand. From scouring websites, I see photos of artwork I am not quite sure I like. And then they arrive, and then I see that simple Yoshitomo Nara drawing is actually exquisite and note that the Barry McGee piece separated from its original cluster is screaming orange at me. They are beautiful in a way I cannot explain, and I didn't see looking at the website. They speak to Y in an incomprehensible language, which I only vaguely understand when my eyes look at our walls contemplating what the artists may be thinking.
Since we've painted the living and dining rooms, we have been searching for art to cover the barren walls. Y has been pretty decisive about what he wants, whereas I know what I could like, but cannot find something worth acquiring. It's pretty hard for me to commit to something that seems both permanent and ephemeral to me, a piece of art that I want to see all the time, to live with, to spend my time on, to not grow bored of. I could fill the walls like Heipel, who's home is like a brilliant salon of paintings and drawings that captured his interest. I realize his walls tell me more about him than his caustic wit and barbs. I feel just a little bit closer to him when I admire what he has put together and collected. I don't know how to fill my walls (or at least my sections of the walls). Perhaps I am afraid to tell the world who I can be, perhaps I am afraid that I won't have enough space to show all the pieces I'd get, or perhaps I just simply don't know who I am and so cannot find something that moves me. But if that was the case, then I wouldn't have thought Rodolfo's aria in the second act of Luisa Miller was sung so touchingly, beautifully, the other night at the opera or the last shot of Tony Leung in Happy Together on the train in HK was so achingly beautiful in its nostalgia or how coldly beautiful it was, skiing dangerously across a frozen lake on a bright sunny winter day. And certainly wouldn't have thought how hot that Chinese guy in Accounting looks in his tight dress pants, riding with me in the elevator one Friday afternoon. (Yes, I have a new crush at work.)
Of the paintings I have been admiring lately, the $2.5 million Rioplle abstract makes me want to be a millionaire, or be married to one. For those things in reach, I am not moved enough to buy the pieces, the beauty escapes me, while the prices do not. How do you invest in art, in the beauty of a canvas, in someone else's imagination? My gaze won't stop moving in a different direction, seeing a different profile, being distracted by a subtle movement, obscured by a different angle. Nothing moves me, everything moves me. I can't have it all, but I want to.
Labels: art
posted by joe at 6:14 PM
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