I Remember Painting

December 2022

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  Mr. Banksy, prophet of Subway Walls & Tenement Halls, wearing his Mysterioso Cape shows up at The Office to address the Subject: Surveillance. He completes his task and retires from the scene. However, before The Capitalistos from The Banksy Collector Agency can show up and liberate important concrete from the mere, his vandalism is desecrated by Taggers, an omnipresent lifeform seemingly everywhere.

  Our choices now would be to convince Mr. B to repeat his operation bereft of subterfuge or contact The Tate Restoration Department to mend.

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  OR, we can just Remember Fondly.

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 I, of course appropriated all evidence of this incident from The Great Collective Mind and am only Cutting & Pasting back to you, supplying only a wreath in Memoriam. Unfortunately, I cannot quite recall this artwork I have neither seen in actuality nor even in facsimile. All that does not prevent me from conjuring/ remembering, albeit a flawed process. Really, unless I straight-armed a Cell Phone User from their command position before a given Masterpiece

these things only exist in My Dreams. I would like to mount the northern pole of The (bobbling) Reality Orb but cannot.

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 So, do YOU, inquiring art expert, recall "Painting", now suddenly, unexpectedly, subversively, miraculously, recast as A Verb and not a precedent Institution? Fifth Grade?/ Or Only In "your dreams"? Seems I can't; seems to be an activity of Doing (or dreaming) that generates familiarity.

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 I think I have borrowed an image of the late Chuck Close, avidly working, from The Great internet, but not positive.

It is written Mr. Close had difficulty finding remembrance when confronting A Face; thus he painted and painted such. We are confronted with the #MeToo task of determining whether Mr. Close was "a painter" or "a scoundrel" but we'll leave that for another day. In "our" presentation Chuck's articulating right hand is opposed by another, bearing An Eraser* (* See Sistine for reference)/ That is only Painting fighting back, not necessarily Mr. Close's artistic fate. More on point, Painting requires a riveted ocular attention with a simultaneous knowledge of the painting's All-Over And the artist's "position" in Time & Space.

    In conclusion, it is your prerogative to decide who, Mr. Banksy, Mr. Close, yourself or me, best Remembers Painting.

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  Whew! "Box Of Rain" or Balderdash? Such a lot of bother and obsession over almost nothing! I hate Minimalism AND DADA too! He must think he is Coca-Cola!!

  Post Note:

 After publishing on my website, Microsoft's Bing A.I. did inform me that Red & Green, with cursive text and a pictorial wreath, published at the tail end of December was indeed a Christmas Card, almost identical and generally indistinguishable from thousands of others.

We thank you for your kind reciprocating Holiday Salutations.