Knock Knock. Who's There? Art. Art Who?

For the record, this is the worst way to start a piece of writing. Seriously, if I were my own comp student, I'd downgrade me a full letter grade. But nevertheless, here goes.

Augury means an omen or an interpretation of omen.

So isn't it ironic that when Anna and Leo decided to make an art piece about art and art galleries and the question of what art is and why people go to see art, and they decided to call the piece "Augury" (well, actually "Auguri," but let's just overlook that because either it's a typo or pretentious, and since I like Anna and Leo, better not to point out if they were being either haphazard or grandiloquent), nobody could have predicted that the gallery that had chosen to exhibit the piece would close before the piece was even made.

But there it is. So I spent the evening being videoed with a bunch of other art-types speaking about the nature of art, including a somewhat heated (thank heavens, it's really cold today) discussion about whether art is just the artist's expression or whether it needs an audience. And not one of us in the damn piece thought to mention postmodernistically speaking that the piece we were in seemed a tragic statement on art making and audience, inasmuch as thanks to the gallery closing the piece as it stands now is pretty much 10 characters in search of an audience, not to put to fine a Pirandello on it.

Let's assume that this oversight was due to the cheap wine with which they had lured us all to the studio.

If I were to go all theoretical, I might note that Anna and Leo are also named Daedalus. Daedalus as in the craftsman who was so fine a craftsman that he was imprisoned. Only to escape through his craft, specifically those magnificent wings. But they were a little too well-crafted, and boom the next thing you know it's sun on son violence, good-bye Icarus.

It seems that there is some brilliant statement that can be made about art/craft and hubris, the making and the showing, the fall into the abyss. I, however, am not prepared to make it. Let's assume that this oversight is also due to the cheap wine with which they had lured us all to the studio.

On the bright side, I did make two spontaneous knock-knock jokes on tape. I got to see a bunch of friends who came down to be in the video. And I got to meet some other folks who also came down to be in the video. Including Barb Tetenbaum, who actually was at the Norse Hall this weekend and was working door for the sold-out square dance and who though neither of us augured our upcoming connection sold me two tickets to said sold out square dance because I made puppy eyes for like half an hour I was so desperate to get in. Here's to Barb Tetenbaum, without whom the last blog entry would have been naught. Barb Tetenbaum, you are the wind beneath my crinolines (way better than wax wings).