FrankGaard.com

Lost yesterday's blog,frustrating ideas up in smoke. I'm not very gifted in the digital arts, plus I'm old and romantic still imagine films where something happens that should'nt happen as in old noir films. When I stayed with Mike McCoy in Venice a few years back we drove past Dennis Hopper's property which was like a giant military compound boy it was liked a celebrity overkill, the guy lived on a set it was morning in Amerika the Saudi punks blew up the Twin Towers in Manhattan. they would have called on Dennis Hopper if they could afford a really A movie production.

I was just finished with grad school when my first son was born, they called when I was working the night shift at the Oakland Post Office. Peter was born around 7 in the am.  When he got older he'd say he kept me out of the war as if that was reason number one for his existing.

In Cody Books in Berkeley you could buy little books written by the Viet Cong these publications were intended to find new comrades and cadre. I remember by friend Steve (special forces) saying that these books were all propaganda and I thought this freedom of the press is a great concept. Indeed freedom of the press is very important for artists' The Artpolice Journal was very much a free speech vehicle.

Hey Put The Pants in The Hole!!

Immortalty is in short supply.,I remember something in Dorothy Parker regards the world having become less than it had been. It's population sure but it's also how genius seems less the case, the search engine makes us all such smarties. And at the same time we don't look as deep, maybe deep has lost itself? Women used to say they were looking for a deeper man, that just anyone will not do, he's got to be a sort of trophyman, when your ladyfriends meet him they growl like Eartha Kit, it's as if in the late 1950's the criterion changed.

Wittgenstein created a logic that was precise and clean. Subjective content was not part of an equation which gave us modernity, trains running on time and the gramaphone, infinitely repeatable music and speech. Caruso in your own home. Wittgenstein understood the necessity of a modern logic by which language would become more efficient and useful to technology.

I grew up in Chicago during the time Pepsi Cola was the pop of choice. In the morning we'd search for empty pop bottles in the alley (worth 2 cents each) then a 12 oz. bottle of pop was 8 cents . So you'd need to find at least 4 or 5 empty bottles and another couple for a 5 cent bag of chips. Then we'd sit in the alley backs to the garage and enjoy our summer breakfast. Then we often need to get 99 cents together to buy a ball at the hardware store. Part of the ball money would be bottles found and redeemed and then it was pennies and nickels from usually about half a dozen boys.

Capital you have to have some money to make art. When I started in the 1960's you could do alot with a small amount of money. Art school at the art institute's college was under $2000 a year! In the art schools you were pretty much left alone, I remember Ray Yoshita was my 4th year sponsor and I saw him only once at my semester critique. It was just this chance to make things outside the framework of a professor or advisor, it was our chance to see how we dealt with freedom. It was productive and fun it was a good place to leave undergraduate studies.

 Went to see 1964 an exhibition of contemporary art made in that year the curator is Siri Enberg whose been at the Walker a long while. Anyway I was excited to see this show because 1964 was a big year for me art school was different after pop art popped. The show had a stillness about it like you find in churches or funeral parlors, Andy Warhol.s grocery boxes still a thrill but Andy left this world in 1987, 22 years ago. 1964 Lyndon Johnson rolled over Barry Goldwater and the Vietnam war escalated , more trainers and Marines.

Greetings Humans - From high over your art museums we suck your masterpieces up into our rocket ships .In the early 1980's the art school I worked at was suddenly fabulous for a brief interval in time. It was the French Deconstructive theory hitting a small midwestern art school arts department like an intellectual tornado! Plus Foucault was cute and it was so so French. By now one realizes we sold the top artist position to the Europeans currently held by Sigmar Polke