007. Art As Optimism
It's not all bad!
Optimism doesn’t come to me easily. I tend to envision worst case scenarios, my anxious brain trying to process bad outcomes in advance.
There is a fantastic exchange in Orlando (1992), the Sally Potter film staring Tilda Swinton, based on a Virginia Woolf novel that also rocks. Orlando is spending his final moments with the woman he loves, and can’t stop talking about what it will be like after she is gone. Their exchange goes like this:
Princess Sasha : Why are you sad?
Orlando : Because. Because I can't bear this happiness to end.
Princess Sasha : But we are together.
Orlando : Yes, now. But what about tomorrow? And the day after?
Princess Sasha : Orlando, I think you suffer from a strange melancholy. Which is, you suffer in advance. Look at me. Look. You are too serious, Orlando. And yet not serious enough.
There is a similar line of thinking in one of my favorite books, Motherhood, by Sheila Heti. In her struggle to discern whether or not she wants to have children, Heti’s narrator becomes suspicious of her boyfriend. She writes:
“I have only two choices: to trust him or be suspicious of him; to believe in him or to doubt. Then I ought to make the choice to trust him, because what good does it do me to be suspicious or to doubt? That is causing myself pain in advance of any real pain.”
I have collected these little sentiments because finding them in the art of others strikes something inside of me—a chime of recognition. These people are doing what I do, the paradox of anxious thinking. Creativity turned sour. Imagination wasted on our darkest unknown futures.
Some of my hardest work is trying to keep my focus trained on the moment I’m in. I have learned that I can’t make hard things easier by anticipating them.
All of this was a long-winded way of explaining how I arrived at my current state of ”self-prescribed optimism” and how I found it echoed in the many white cubes of downtown Manhattan this week.
Sociologists Adorno and Horkheimer wrote:
“I do not believe that things will turn out well, but the idea that they might is of decisive importance.”
The art I loved this week was a reminder of a beautiful world that still exists if we can look past all of the terrible news (it will still be there when you choose to tune in).
I did a sort of Tribeca/Soho/East Village situation on Friday (1/17) to check out a few newly opened shows I’ve been wanting to see. There is a TON of great art up in every neighborhood right now, so expect to see more gallery recs for other areas soon :)
Chris Martin at Timothy Taylor (74 Leonard Street) - A trend I have seen proliferating fine art over the past two-ish years: GLITTER. I do not usually care for it. It’s pretty much an immediate turn-off for me. However, Martin’s enormous, staggering canvases are so bright and celestial and explosive that the shimmering glitter feels appropriate. The craft store material heightens the hodgepodge aesthetic of these collaged multimedia paintings. It is all very earnest and specific—a cynic could not make this art!
I didn’t take any photos so this is a bad screenshot from the TT website - SORRY TO ALL! Monica Subidé at Nino Mier (62 Crosby Street) - The beauty of Subidé’s colors is perfectly balanced with the rough urgency of her brushstrokes. If you’re a painting nerd like me, this show is really a feast for the eyes. One of my main gripes with Cubism has always been the muddy, bleak color palette. I think most Cubist paintings are kind of gross. Subidé’s work recalls Picasso’s most primitive, interesting flattening but injected with striking hues.
Hunter Potter at SHRINE (368 Broadway) - I usually see what’s up at SHRINE but it wasn’t on my list and I almost just skipped it. Something made me turn around though. A sixth sense! Because the Hunter Potter sculptures inside were absolutely delightful. Apparently he is not a woodworker by trade, but rescued all of these logs and wood scraps and fashioned them into friendly faces of all shapes and sizes.
Alex Hutton’s paintings hang in the back of the gallery. I got lost in his dizzying lines, the kind of painting that not many have the patience or skill to execute. The amusement park subject matter is eerie and dreamlike—recommend spending some time with these, getting lost in their meticulous lattice work.
Verne Dawson at Karma (22 E. 2nd Street) - I stumbled upon Dawson’s last show at Karma a few years ago and it was the body of work that transformed my opinion on landscape painting. When his new show opened last week, I rushed to see it. In writing this, I learned that he splits his time between NYC (my home of 8 years) and Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown. He was there for Hurricane Helene, which devastated Western NC a few months ago. I can’t wait to go back to this show and see the work again knowing Dawson is influenced by the same nature I grew up in. I was looking at these paintings thinking about what a utopian, vivid, natural world they portrayed. Now I realize that world is my beautiful home filtered through a fantastic artist’s eyes, hands, and heart.
I did love this cityscape as well. HONORABLE MENTIONS
Irina Lotarevich at Silke Lindner (350 Broadway)
Per Adolfsen at Nino Mier (380 Broadway)
Happy long weekend, hope you’re able to access beauty and optimism in 2025 :) xx
Love love love this