I was named one of the Scholars in Residence at MoMA this year, along with Nathalie Joaquim and Saloni Mathur, two tremendous scholars and artists who I still cannot believe I am able to dialogue with—in addition to the staff in the Research Department (Leah Dickerman has been amazing), Performance, Painting, Photography, and more.
It was my first week, and I have an office on the 4th floor. I have an office in MoMA. WHAT!? A queer NDN from Corpus Christi, Texas, who didn’t know shit about shit growing up. Who grew up in a city with an art museum that people only ever used as a backdrop for prom photos. Now, this queen has a key card that opens doors; computer and a desk and empty shelves he needs to fill so the space doesn’t feel temporary, even though it is.
There are lots of things I’m going to be doing—some of which started with the “Body” chapter of my forthcoming book—the Indigenous body and redness is a theme there. I am hoping to work on some ideas about redness—the red of race but also the material, symbolic, and epistemological hues that often get overshadowed by red as “race”.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I can say that I have felt like a shy child on the first day of school. That was Tuesday.
On Thursday I walked around the galleries for part of the afternoon (I learned so fast that they are called ‘galleries’, not ‘the museum’ or the ‘rooms’ as I had said as I was heading out), looking at and walking through the crowd.
I was scanning for red things. I got lost. But eventually I twisted my way back to a place I was familiar with—the main entrance—and was able to make it back to my office.
I came across a few red objects, but the work that really grabbed me was Kazuo Shiraga’s 1964 Untitled. So, with this text I want to work on how I see and write about art. (Art is not my first object of study; I am not an art historian, though perhaps I am growing into a passable art critic).
An exercise in looking:
The canvass is medium sized, off white, and features two intense gestures in red oil paint. There are other hues: ochre, and a hint of yellow, with dark, blood red edges where the paint accumulates. The wall text notes: “Shiraga rolled half naked in a pile of mud or painted with his arms, legs, and feet instead of with a brush.” I know he used his feet early in his career. In this painting, though, it seems he has chosen to use larger portions of his body, a torso, a leg, the back, spreading paint across the canvass in decisive, almost violent motion.
The two central gestures form a repetition, perhaps a continuation of a phrase, in which a crease at the center gives way to a sweeping curve down and to the right. There is a clear sense of movement, of touch. I feel an intensity here. A sense of urgency. The striations in the paint in the right half of the canvass give the gesture some depth—texture, movement, while, at the same time, the repetitive (or paired) form suggests an iteration, perhaps an incomplete idea, a need to continue. But the canvass does not insinuate that it is itself incomplete, but rather that form is always in process, its incompleteness is the point.
And then, the red. Powerful. Vibrant. A deep and layered crimson that does not remind me of nature—not plant dies, but blood. Not flora, but ferocity. A red feeling. A blessing of earth and fire. A moment of tectonic movement, underfoot, under belly. A memory.
I enjoy reading about your journey.
Felicitaciones Jo!!