Waiting for the police to come

Please forgive the long delay in continuing this story. On September 30 I decided to move my studio from Housatonic back to Pittsfield. All month long I have been packing up my things and telling everyone that I am moving. But yesterday I decided to remain where I am and not move. I have received some wonderful compliments in my life. My most favorite was said to me by my sister Romy. She said, "You know that song by Simon and Garfunkel caller 'The Boxer,' where it says 'I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains?' That's you, Richard"

Perhaps I couldn't go on with my story at this point because the next chapter is hard to write, so I will continue on a different track — the art world — if there is such a thing.

When we were students we read Janson’s History of Art. We were filled with awe when we read about Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Franze Kline. It didn’t cross our minds that what we were reading was just advertising copy, not art history. It may have been advertising copy, but we knew that they had done something exceptional, something worthy of being remembered for and written about. We were willing and anxious to give them the credit if only that next paragraph in that history of art book would begin with our name; if only we could start the next chapter.

Never mind that we had no ideas what sort of works that fame would be based upon, we were young and we would have time to figure that out later. It was a matter of making the reservation.

But we were not alone. There were thousands of us, and we all wanted to be in the beginning of that new chapter. And now that modern era’s history is being written and it is a Baroque era. What do I mean by that? A Baroque era is a time when there are so many famous and important people that you can’t keep track of them all, their names and an account of what they did would read like a phone book. And though they are all famous, actually none of them is really known, and none of them actually matters.

In this age, famous artists are like the peas in a huge vat of boiling pea soup. The peas appear on the surface of the soup and then disappear again. That was their career, that was their moment, and that was their fame. Now we long to be one of those peas that appears for a brief instant. In short, we want to have a show in New York.

The last person to become famous in the art world was Andy Warhol, and that was over forty years ago. He was our last famous artist, and the first to understand that the art itself was irrelevant, it was theater, showmanship, and media coverage that were the building blocks of fame, and not works of art. Since then there have been many artists whose works have been considered important, but none of those people are thought of like Picasso was, like Pollock was, and like Warhol.

Now it is Damian Hurst. Damian Hurst is the most famous artist in the world at this time. But look around. No one knows who Damian Hurst is. He is famous, and yet he is completely unknown. But everyone knows who Thomas Kinkade is. He is considered a lumonist. He is the most famous artist on Ebay — the richest, most successful artist in America.

It is two o’clock in the afternoon and I am sitting in an art gallery talking to friends. By five o’clock I can be a famous artist, talked about around the world. I cross the street to the hardware store and buy ten feet of rope. Then I go to the dog pound and adopt a dog. I go back to the gallery, throw the rope over the sprinkler pipes and I hang the dog. I leave the dead dog hanging from the rope in the middle of the gallery while people come and go, and wait for the police to come and arrest me and for reporters to arrive to begin my rise to stardom as an artist.

“Why did you hang the dog?”

“Why are we allowing the war in Iraq to go on, and on. You care about this dog. Then why don’t you care about...?”

I no longer believe in the concept of “The History of Art.”