Otherwise Known as the Human Condition

I’ve been curious for a while about the work of my near-namesake Geoff Dyer, and recently checked out a copy of his fat compendium Otherwise Known as the Human Condition.

The book is divided into sections called Visuals, Verbals, Musicals, Variables, and Personals. I am usually a dutiful book reader, making my way through collections like this in the order the author and publisher have seen fit to present them. But in this case I guessed that more than a hundred pages of art criticism might be a wearisome way to begin, and that I might do better to find out something about the author before trusting his judgment on photographs, books, and music.

So I started at the back, with Personals, which turned out to be a good way to do it. I was pleased to read about Dyer’s childhood devotion to comic books and model airplanes, and his early-adulthood devotion to sex, drugs, and the dole. And I was pleased to find out that the title essay is not a ponderous piece on the meaning of life but is mostly devoted to the author’s quest for the perfect New York City doughnut-and-cappuccino combination. (The ultimate doughnuts, it seems, are manufactured by the Doughnut Plant, whose website—by Bluefuse Design—is animated and annoyingly high-bandwidth, and was probably expensive, but which does inform you that their doughnuts are available at Dean & Deluca, Zabars, Citarella, Joe’s Art of Coffee, Oren’s Daily Roast, and Agata & Valentina.)

This background helps the reader approach Dyer’s works of criticism with enjoyment but a little less reverence than one might otherwise bring. The best of these, I think, are the literary pieces collected in Verbals, and I particularly appreciated Dyer’s enthusiasm for Ryszard Kapuscinski.

His books may be rooted in his own experience, but they are full of amazing digressions, little essays—in Imperium—on how to make cognac, on the history of the Armenian book, on anything and everything. And yet these digressions are always integral to the conception of the work. In his nomadic life he has described real places—like the city of crates in Angola in the famous opening of Another Day of Life—that are as fantastical as Calvino’s invisible cities.

I reviewed Another Day of Life when it came out in 1987, but it would never occur to me to think that anything about it was famous. Linking it to Invisible Cities, one of my famous books, makes this tribute even better. 

The Best Art You’ve Never Seen

How would you feel if the man you considered the son of God and savior of humanity had just been murdered by the authorities?

Exactly. Which is why the resigned melancholy of so many figures in so many depositions from the Cross seems odd.

Not so the figures on the right of Niccolo Dell’Arca’s terracotta sculpture Lamentation over the Dead Christ. Their grief and horror are fresh and palpable.

Lamentation over the Dead Christ is just one of the 101 mostly little-known art works in Julian Spalding’s book The Best Art You’ve Never Seen. (The photo above—not the one in the book—is by Caroline Anderson.)

I didn’t care for every work of art featured in this book: Untitled (Trains and Tunnels), for instance, is an interesting example of outsider art by the mentally ill but hardly seems like a masterpiece of world art. But I was glad to discover Moche Vessel in the Form of a Head, Fragment of a Royal Woman’s Face, Portrait of a Black Woman, Deer in Autumn Forest, and many more. I was pleased to read the author’s case for John James Audubon as a great artist, not just a great naturalist, and it was fascinating to learn that a vast hoard of artifacts and artworks may still lie beneath the tomb of Qin Shi Huang in China. 

O nobly born

As the weather gets warmer, the weary blogger spends less time reflecting on serious books and more time just snapping pictures and saying, “How about that?”

This flyer was posted near the pedestrian entrance at the Brooklyn end of the Manhattan Bridge. The sketch of the jaded skateboard dude receiving the spark of life from the Almighty is signed SPUTZY. The quotation is from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Seeing the tags dangling from the flyer, I thought, “Oh, this is just a clever promotion for some product or service.” But no: Each tag simply says, “Remember the unity of all living things.” Hard to argue with that. 

Elizabeth Catlett at the Bronx Museum

Jenn and I had never been to the Bronx Museum before, but last night we journeyed there on the surprisingly speedy D train for a chance to see Elizabeth Catlett, the sculptor and printmaker who turned 96 this month.

We were disappointed to find a sign at the front desk to say that Catlett couldn’t be there, but we were well compensated by a panel discussion including three of the 21 artists whose work is featured alongside Catlett’s—Sanford Biggers, Renee Cox, and Xaviera Simmons—and by the opportunity to wander through the galleries. Among the most striking pieces for me were Catlett’s terra-cotta head Elvira, and a wild collage called Lizard Love by the Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu (whose work is discussed at Divia’s Blog).

Strangely, the Bronx Museum’s website doesn’t feature any images from the show (not that I can find), but a generous assortment of photos, and a thoughtful discussion of the exhibit, are available at Sherry Howard’s site Auction Finds.

Macramé bicycle

I’ve seen some odd things in my many walks over the Brooklyn Bridge. A man in a panda suit carrying a briefcase. People riding Segways. A man who looked a lot like Kevin Costner. A sculpture of pioneers in a covered wagon by Tom Otterness.

Today it was a bicycle entirely covered with macramé, bolted to a pole at the Brooklyn entrance to the bridge.