I am looking forward to watching the television series, BABYLON BERLIN depicting a period of change in Germany's Weimar Republic in the 1920's. My father lived in Berlin growing up in that era, the formative years - a time when he grew up from a young boy into a young man. I wish he were alive today so I could ask the questions I never asked about HIS life, instead of only probing mine, indicative of the vanity and arrogance of youth.
An interest in history and political science was honed at City College of NY - where I stopped making art and became immersed in exploring the pragmatic realities of nations that were unknown entities. I took courses with the great Hans Kohn in Nationalism, studied Southeast Asia, and eventually went for a year to Graduate School to study Russian Area Studies.
My fascination with the past was enriched by signing up for classes in Greek Literature, reading not only Homer's epic poems - Iliad and the Odyssey, but Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian Wars and discussing Herodotus' Histories, which gave me insights into strategies of war, justice, and the concept of "hubris" and "nemesis". In order to understand the poetry of human motivation and tragic "flaws" I then turned to Shakespeare's plays, and the masters of Ancient Greek literature - Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. - myths infused with wisdom and humor, written with the beauty of the gods they invoked.
Regrettably, I have forgotten so much of what I avidly engorged in my college years, but I have never forgotten the importance of looking at lives that are not only like my own; lives that are lived with the same urgency and desire as all human beings. I attempt to instill in my artwork the shadows the veil of the little that has penetrated my person - a way of conveying the glass-shattering, explosive nature of gliding and fighting our way through the fleeting moments we have on this earth.
It is always a joy to read your "poetry" and get that uplifting rush
ReplyDelete