these texts are an archive of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area from march 2007 - march 2015. it stands as a record of close to a decade of my life, charting the struggles i faced as an artist, daughter, and lover. messy and chaotic at times, eloquent and poetic at others, these texts are an index i am proud of. it was here in this electric box that i learned how to be honest about my experiences and the person i needed to become. it was here that i first learned the truism that words make the world and how to trust such a beautiful, rife, hard fact.

thank you for meeting me here in such tall grass.


my artist website is here.

May 10, 2010

this man



when i first cruised through the MOMA's flickr set for the Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present retrospective a few weeks ago, i was so struck by his face. such an awesome beauty. true beauty. this reaching out. his eyes. and the longing to trust so apparent, so honest, made evident. maybe fearful but also courageous. and i'm so glad i'm not the only one who was captivated by his emotion, his openness.

his name is Paco Blancas.

2 comments:

Roz Ito said...

this is really remarkable. i've been meaning to read more about the abramovic show but your post and this man paco blancas got me over to the flicker site and then over to the exhibition site, where i watched some live video feed of her sitting performance with audience members. incredible. it is the most challenging thing, the most precious thing, the most endangered thing, to be present with another person. that she's setting up this experience in the context of art, in the context of the museum, just says so many things about "value." when i was in school there was a time i thought of creating my own interdisciplinary major that would somehow combine art history & religious studies-- it was a compelling combination for me but i did not pursue it b/c at the time i felt as a student that i needed to be able to say something meaningful about the subject, instead of just studying and trying to learn more about the subject, wherever this learning led me. now i see that it is nearly humanly impossible to say anything meaningful about this subject but that artists like abramovic are trying to make spaces where the experience of this meaning can happen for many people, including blancas and abramovic herself. makes me feel, on a deep level, that the religious is human, the religious is the here & now, the religious is the human presence here & now. thank you for this.

his longing to trust. yes absolutely.

angela simione said...

hi roz. your comment is absolutely beautiful. i've often thought of ART itself as a religion... an impulse toward connection, toward understanding, some sort of completeion... no matter how fleeting the feeling.

and yes- the human presence here and now. an ever-increasing rarity within a technology driven society. not that i'm opposed to technology and its convieneces... but rather it makes me anxious for balance.

and when i saw the photograph of this man, and as i flipped through the entire portrait series one by one, i can only descibe the experience of it as an *i know this feeling*. this surrender of emotional need. she becomes the catalyst or outlet or partner (and i mean partner in a very basic, loving, human way) for the exposure of another person's deep longing... the lonliness we carry... the evidence of the contact or connectedness we are deprived of, off and on, throughout our lives. and her own need as well. her own desire for connection.

a religious experience, in deep. life affirming and soul shaking.