I thought about photographing Made in Astoria gallery the morning after the de-installation of my exhibit VALUBL OBJX, but I just didn’t. Could’ve, but didn’t. A week later, today, I’ve definitely shifted into full-on Post-Sho-Mode [PSM]. Sleep patterns have more or less returned to normal. Same with the diet. The mind, though, that’s something else.

Screen capture from digital animation, “I don’t understand it” by Paul McLean for VALUBL OBJX.

PSM is fairly common among exhibiting artists, judging from many conversations I’ve had with my peers over the years. Sure, okay, the evidence is anecdotal. That doesn’t mean the phenomenon isn’t real. The intensity of a PSM episode, based on my non-scientific research, is usually proportional to the stakes and outcome of the show. Not true in all cases. A general rule.

Artists, if you buy the romantic stereotype, are prone to various types of instability, and are not known for being the most logical bunch among us. It can be a challenge to discern what exactly is at stake for any given artist, during any given exhibition run. Could be nothing or not much, or could be everything, and I mean every damn thing. Be careful what you ask of an artist in PSM. You don’t how they might reply to the ubiquitous Casual’s question, after the show closes, “Did you sell a lot of work?” Could be the artist chirps, “Yeah, tons!” or they put their head through the coffee shop’s plate glass window you happen to be standing next to. It’s easier just to wave when you come across a PSM-affected artist, if you come across one. We’re an endangered species, don’t ya know. …By the way, I dropped that bit about artists being endangered, pretty much as a pithy throwaway line, to infer a corollary conversation about who’s an artist in post-contemporary period, and what the artists’ generic status might be presently. It’s a question (Who’s an artist?) I’m always asking, along with a couple of others (What is art? & What is art for?). On a verifying whim, though, I searched “artists an endangered species” and discovered that endangered species [ES] as subject matter for artists comprise a veritable sub-market in the art industrial complex. Topping the list of luminary ES artists - did you guess it? - long-deceased Andy Warhol! Ugh. Does anyone else out there suspect we artists should be on extinction watch? Even if we are in imminent danger of extinction, wouldn’t it also make perfect sense that we would keep ourselves occupied on the way to the Void, making pretty art about other species suffering the same fate?

∞

I’m thinking about Bill Worrell, a Texan sculptor, whom I knew in Santa Fe in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. Back then, he showed at Contemporary Southwest Galleries [CSG], one of Frank Howell’s constellation of art enterprises. Frank’s gone, now, as are his constellation of art enterprises. I don’t think either of these old white guys would have fared as well as they did as popular commercial artists these days, given the widespread animus towards cultural co-optation or appropriation. No way, José! Bill made and sold mostly bronze sculpture and jewelry, inspired by pictographs and petroglyphs. Bill was a gregarious character. At one point he offered me a job applying patinas to his stylized shaman figures, buffing them and so on. As I recall, that gig lasted an afternoon. I have a fairly vivid image of sitting in his yard, working away, smoking, maybe sipping a beer. Bill coming over to correct my technique in his twangy voice, urging me to speed up. At some point, later, I bought one of his pendants for my Mom. I forget what became of it, after she passed away. My stint at CSG ended messily, after a year and a few months. My tasks at CSG included installing work, doing the lighting, prepping art for transport, and, once I got the hang of it, selling the art, on or off the ladder. The gallery gypped me out of the commission for around 100k worth of sales (about a tenth of the gallery’s annual retail take), when they switched the payout structure to the gallery’s benefit. I filed a complaint with the appropriate Santa Fe city agency. We went to mediation, and the gallery got off without paying me what I was owed. It was suggested by the arbitrator I get a lawyer, LoL. Bad experience. Things got awkward, and I was let go or quit, I can’t remember which. Probably the former. I got sober not long after. Anyway, I searched for Bill on the web and discovered he passed away a couple of years ago. RIP, Bill. RIP, Frank. RIP, CSG, LoL.

A lot of attached memories percolated to the surface, prompted by my recollections of Bill and his shamans. Maybe it has something to do with Venus and Mercury going retrograde. Maybe it’s just part of my closing in on sixty. Looking back gets complicated. It’s like being in two places and times at once. I catch a glimpse of the energy of those long-gone moments and the relationships that intertwine through them. What I was doing with whom. What I was thinking and feeling. What happened next, or didn’t. How things ended. Complex narratives, a rhizome of relations.In PSM, the mind follows the drift. The river of memories flows in one direction, then bends in another. Once you’re in the current, you try not to get too far away from the shore, which is the present, and Reality, in the here and now. One has to possess mental discipline, to be tenacious. You have to muster reasons to keep close to the shallows, and not surrender to the depths.

A river’s flow is a fine, ancient metaphor for the flow of memory. Lucky, I can gaze out to the vast Columbia and find a reflection for my musings. Or I can take a short drive to Sunset Beach and ponder the powerful Pacific Ocean. I can think about rip tides, about waves. These northwest coastal waters are cold, and can turn violent, wreck a vessel in the churn. The season of storms is approaching. You can feel it in the bones. Even though the sun still shines, and the temperature is balmy while it does.

∞

After a show, I commonly go through a pronounced post-partum phase. Over the years, I have developed techniques to mitigate the negative aspects of the post-show blahs. In the past, I took a month off to travel, or rest. Maybe get some bodywork, do extra workouts, take hikes and get out in nature. Eat a lot of comfort food. Sleep in. Hang out with friends and family I’d neglected during production. Read a book. Take in somebody else’s show or performance. Watch a movie. Relax.

For some reason today, Texas kept coming up. I was chasing some thread and Ballroom Marfa popped into my scope by way of Glasstire. Ballroom’s facade is just fantastic. One of my favorites. I thought about visiting Marfa, about Don Judd (RIP), about Prada Marfa, and some of the people I met in that special, distinctly American destination art town within spitting distance of the Mexican border. Which got me thinking about Cormac McCarthy and Blood Meridian. RIP, Cormac. Through the lens of PSM, I tripped into the scroll-hole of the Paris Review’s “The Daily.” I find a review of Tara Donovan’s “screen drawings.” Suddenly, I’m back in LA, sweating, smoking, slurping coffees, with several crews of art handlers, unloading a myriad of commonplace materials in bulk for a show Tara was doing at Ace. Pause. Drift some more. …No Rest in Peace for Doug Chrismas, yet. And they haven’t got him into prison, yet, either. Amazing. I remember our doing a surface inspection and damage report on a massive and heavy wall sculpture we were picking up or dropping off, don’t remember which. We marked down every little ding and scratch, of which there were many, due to this particular artist’s technique and materials. The process took forever. All because the assistant director or whoever bitched about something and pissed off the lead handler. They always did this with Ace/Chrismas. He was a known quantity among vet logistics guys. I remember scanning art classifieds in LA Weekly or LA Times and finding several listings for positions at Ace in a single issue. Every few months. Not a good sign. Means the owner’s turning over the entire staff, routinely. A few of my CGU art faculty showed with Doug, and I attended a few of their openings. I heard stories and explanations. I saw how the work was presented, the big crowds and VIPs at the reception. It wasn’t hard to understand the phenomenon that was Ace/Chrismas, in one way. The man knows how to put on a show.

∞

I run into Bill and Annie of Made in Astoria at Sleeper Coffee one morning. Bill asks me what I think about wall treatments for temporary exhibits. I launch into a history lesson that lasts ten minutes. Annie has to get to work. When I get home, I look up Whistler’s Peacock Room, which I had confused with the Jade Room. The article I find on the Met site, “The Jade Room and Other Forgotten Museum Spaces,” dovetails nicely with my PSM. The illusion of permanence that art perpetuates as it transits architecture and exhibition is only one seam, in the “mine” of art thoughts. …Imagining every art show, ever. Putting oneself momentarily into the presenters’ pipe dreams of aesthetic immortality. All those sparkly openings and dreary closings. The steady stream of art handlers and logistics guys, moving to and fro. Admins fretting. …Paint the walls, don’t paint the walls. Eventually, it always comes down. Art is a migratory species. It appears and disappears. RIP, Baudrillard.

This is an example of drifting too far from the metaphysical shore. Paddling back.

After my encounter with the Ghost of Art Shows Past (and forgotten), I do an about-face, and leap into the deep scroll, out of the drift. Into the morphing of the Real that is Contemporary Art Daily. There I discover a clever show by Mads Lindberg at C.C.C. in Copenhagen. I have never encountered Lindberg before. Never visited the gallery. Never been to Copenhagen. Ahh, fresh content! I adore Lindberg’s paintings, hung high above the floor. The offset spiral staircase reminds me of the McLean family home on Granville Avenue in Beckley, West Virginia. The layer of graphic two-tone snowballs is a nice dimensional device to bind the series into a whole. Well done! Refreshed and curious, I click down the infinite scroll, dropping in on contemporary art exhibits and installations from around the globe. After the first several, I’m still encouraged. I am noticing the painted- or other treated-wall features in some of them. I must remind Bill to check this out. But after a half-dozen I am feeling the momentum gear down. Ennui is replacing it after a dozen virtual show-visits. Shit. The realization that we are decidedly well into the post-contemporary period, and in aggregate these shows are proof. I am contemplating the carcass of the contemporary. The scenes are reminiscent of Alexander Gardner’s Civil War photographs. Or pictures of mass-die-offs of cattle in pastures. Art, like the American Southwest, and other parts of the real world, is suffering an extended super-drought. In my imagination, beautiful people are sunbathing among Gardner’s array of bloated corpses, oblivious to the stench.

∞

I thought about getting a good Road vehicle and crisscrossing the North American continent again. RIP, Jack Kerouac. About documenting every art gallery in the country. Meditation practice has taught me to let thoughts come and go. Other visualization-based practices help me to think ideas through. Doing so can help one avoid missteps and overreach in production and logistical operations. Interstate travel in the USA has changed significantly, and not for the better, in one man’s opinion. Gas is crazy expensive. American infrastructure is in decay. The Pandemic, political and cultural polarization, virtualization, etc., have radically affected the people of this nation. I want to name the malaise, but it is dimensional, and therefore resistant to recursion, to any over-simplification. Although that (oversimplification, narrative flattening or compression) is exactly what everyone seems to yearn for. There’s no good local radio for late nights on cruise control at 80MPH. Smartphone map apps spoil the experience, in some respects. Search engines, too. All these factors make it harder to just fall in love with America, to swoon as the miles go by. Making friends of strangers was the difference-maker, back in the day. Now, hardly anyone trusts anyone else. Damn. There’s plenty of blame to be assigned, but in the end it just sucks. The up-and-comer generation can hardly conceive of the way it was. Not everywhere, not for everyone, for sure. For me, the Highway was a promise fulfilled. For every season that no major public policy initiative passes, addressing the matrix of problems combining to manifest Coast-to-Coast structural desolation, neglect and squalor, we love a big chunk of our Big Country identity (and I don’t mean this Big Country, though I do have fond memories of the song and band. I mean this one.). …Shame.

In the post-contemporary, all the money goes to The Information Superhighway. Remember that stained old jack of a trope? About as cheap a coinage as The Cloud. RIP, Information Superhighway. RIP, Road. The current iteration operates more like a Disinformation Super-pipeline channeling the seeds of madness directly into our homes and minds. …In PSM one must be very careful about reactionary impulses. On the other hand, one has to be conscious of veering too far into isolation, or tendencies toward willful ignorance of actual circumstances external to one’s immediate concerns and conditions. A second opinion can be immensely useful, if one is in the throes of dark PSM. A reality check from a real person not similarly affected. In some instances, a little web scanning can serve to allay an unwarranted fear, dissolve a goofy idea or counter a ridiculous position. In 4D analysis we categorize such procedural methods verification and negation. For those of us predisposed to nuttiness, it helps in the discernment of the True from the False, in keeping with settled standards for Reality.

Let me give an example. Approximately a day after “VALUBL OBJX” came down, and Bill and I brought the work home, my Instagram started glitching hard. An alert warned me that someone, presumably a phisher or other sort of black-hat hacker, had tried accessing my account. IG wanted to confirm I was, in fact, myself. A six-digit code was emailed to the address I set up, oh, around 2001, which I had made the default when I set up my first Facebook account, circa 2006 or -7. Once I receive the code, I enter it into a form, then the next form appears, demanding I change my password. Fine. Granted access to @Valubl once more. Then, a few minutes later the alert pops up again, freezing my account. Repeat the process. Over and over and over. I did all the things you do. Clear all Insta-history. Log Out/Log In. Restart browser. Restart computer. Contact the notoriously shitty (non-existent) Meta customer service via email or by phone [two #s for billions of users (!)]. Confirm this is a known bug, via web forums and tech Q&As. Finally, after days of frustration, I contacted the Better Business Bureau of Oregon to lodge a complaint against Meta Corporation. My complaint was accepted. BBB contacted Meta, and we’ll see what happens. I think I’ll follow up by reaching out to my federal and state representative. I might ask the Feds if they need an extra hand in breaking apart Big Tech monopolies. Or start a user movement to nationalize social media, starting with boycotts of all Meta products. Here’s what the voice of Reason whispers in my ear: “…Whoa, now, hoss. Let’s dial it back, just a hair. You’re just a guy, an artist in Astoria, dealing with PSM.”

Another known side effect of PSM is What-if-ism. The progression can go something like this, if, say, you happen to be a fan of Adam Curtis documentaries, Radiohead, Will Oldham, the Trillbilly Workers Party, and so on: “Maybe the timing is finally right for a real turnaround!” You can just make out the contours of a post-contemporary rebellion, an uprising of the beleaguered hordes. The wholesale rejection of status quo tyranny and its constantly-expanding nebula of macro- and micro-oppressions. Magical thinking inflects the elliptical logic of intellectuals, poets and pundits. Radicals and reactionaries alike note that collective action is making a comeback. Class commentary becomes colorful in the metaphors: “The spinning knobs of the oligarchy are wobbly;” or “The veneer of monopoly media is showing some cracks, due in part to dreadful management, awful behavior and failure to keep in touch with the majority of content consumers, who yearn for consistent, good quality entertainment and information products.” I imagine Milo Santini on a News Hour Program. “Bob, Rachel, my tracking data and analysis indicate potential for disruption of the industrial command and control matrix on a number of vital fronts. Labor is flexing in Hollywood and Detroit and the typical neo-liberal responses have failed to derail those strikes. The narratives of Big Gig are thinning out. The huge muscle driving AI has doinked its systemic push.” The anchors are grimacing. Their flesh is flush. Ties and collars are tugged at. Skirts and earpieces are checked. “The rigged financial sector is getting nervous behind some indicators and situations that threaten to pull its lever, and draw the dirty players out of the shadows and into the bright lights of scrutiny. The pressures that combine to blow the lid off the cauldron, turn it over and spill its seething contents are mounting.” Everyone is staring into the camera, blinking faster, fidgeting nervously. The subtle non-verbal twitches and gestures signing the producers to cut ASAP to commercial break. Milo’s vocal pitch is rising. He’s gathering steam for a crescendo. “If you listen close, you can hear the whistling at night. You can almost hear the songs over the wind blowing. You might hear the sound of Bernie’s raspy rant echoing in the distance. God bless SAG-AFTRA, the UAW, those pesky Starbucks baristas. Remember East Palastine! Remember Silicon Valley and First Republic!” Milo’s totally losing it. He’s gone off the rails. Security appears, and the others clear out. Milo begins to shout, as he’s being hoisted and dragged backstage and out of the building. “Oliver Anthony howls across the hilltop, the ground is shaking, then the Flood, and a hundred more catastrophes. War dogs are snarling. The castle gates have never seemed more feeble. A hoard of fortune will prove no solace, in the end, for anyone, when it all goes Helter Skelter (“Helter skelter, feare no colours, course him, trounce him”). Shame and justice pursue the wicked wherever they hide. By god, maybe in the 21st Century, the humble shall inherit Earth!” In post-production, Milo’s eruption is given the montage treatment, with layers and layers of blurred imagery and distorted audio. Of course, no corporate media would in a million years let a disaster like this near a broadcast. Their “news” aesthetic? Rinse, repeat, cut to ED, fast food, and new car or credit card ads. Clickbait. Culture war transgression. Pwns. Influencers. Mass shooting. #METOOs. Bombs. China/Taiwan, Russia/Ukraine, anything Middle East. Disease and pestilence. Nature out of control. Things that will kill you. Things you can buy or do to not die too young. Etc. Focus directed anywhere, besides the Real Problem.

Resample by PJM. Source material, **HERE**.

RIP, Sinéad O'Connor. …In my PSM fervor (or fever), I was starting to channel a chaotic, loony, post-contemporary version of the Beatitudes, but then Bukowski crashed the party. The poet possessed an eccentric gift for deadpanning a grim social dynamic, and turning a beat spiritual pep talk into a smoky grumble, conjuring a mad mise en scène:

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth
if I suffer at this
typewriter
think how I'd feel
among the lettuce-
pickers of Salinas?
I think of the men
I've known in
factories
with no way to
get out-
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while
2 or 3 children beat
tennis balls against
the wall.
some suicides are never
recorded.

Yadayadayada… Or in reverse: A Day. A Day. A Day. Each a miracle and wonder. Or, conversely, an endless trudge saturated with horror and frustration. RIP, Charles. Sometimes, “success” is a function of what one doesn’t do. On the 27th of this month, I’ll have thirty-two years sober.

During PSM, one has to learn to deny the prophetic urge and embrace the natural Flow of existence. Easier said than done, am I right?

The studio is calling again, thank the heavens. The Muse is whispering. I am dreaming again of worlds in pigment. I am seeing things BIG, like stargazing on a clear PNW night, whose darkness is like no other I’ve known. PSM will not last for long, of that I’m certain. It passes. It all does. The whole universe is moving, it seems to me. No two moments are identical. Like breath. Note: On the first or second working after I filed my complaint with BBB Oregon, the annoying as hell Meta alerts just ceased. No explanation. No contact by a Meta representative. I’m thinking I will still contact me government representatives, report the problem, and offer to assist any efforts to remedy Big Tech overreach and malpractice. I’ve also had an idea for an activist solution: forming a Platform Users Union (PUU, pronounced pee-yew) for networking, boycotts, petitions, protests and all kinds of direct and asymmetrical collective action. Historically, powerful versus powerless ain’t a fair fight. America, though, has at moments, including in its origins, given hope to underdogs everywhere. Don’t count us out just yet. It’s been years since I first argued that the ultimate showdown, the real World War III, would pit the global elite against everyone else. Are we there yet?

∞

Proposals. In the liminal space or psychic trough following a show, I will go to work on a proposal. I did that this time, and will be submitting an application for an Eyebeam Fellowship. The title of the proposal is: Post-Digital Commonwealth [P-DC]; mapping Technology-Free Corridors within society; precursor for networked analog-safe zones; for restorative purposes; a Post-Contemporary imaginary emulating Park systems. The title is descriptive of the proposed program, in its broad contours. I must admit that I have little inkling of how the review committee will receive the concept. It (the proposition) is Heyoka-flavored, which appeals to a backwards-looking, forward-walking soul, and not necessarily to the tech-progressive art set. We shall see.

It seemed to me that I might have applied for an Eyebeam Fellowship before, a long time ago, but I couldn’t remember, with certainty, so I checked my Submittable history. I hadn’t. About ten years ago I applied for a residency at Recess in Brooklyn. Rejected. I also applied to Artist Relief for funds during the Pandemic. Rejected. Twice. Over the past decade, post-Occupy, most of my art-related proposals have been rejected. I won’t bore the reader with a lengthy list, measuring what a loser I am. Lulz. While experiencing PSM, it behooves a body to cleave to the positive. In keeping with that principle, I have moderated my expectations with such things. Without question, the art world has undergone significant change over that period. Or has it? I’m afraid we’re turning negative, folks. …The art world is always in flux, like the rest of the world. Is that true? …I, after all is sung & done, defer to Bo Burnham, as we approach the finish below. Haha. No, not really. I’m, like, three times his age. I’m just in PSM. This is what it’s like, among the curls and foam, one hour to the next.

Immediately after an exhibit closes, I try to refrain from critical analysis at depth and generalizations about What’s Happening Now. Not just in the Big Picture. In the up-close & personal domain, too. I find my interpretive systems can be - let’s say - prone to asymmetry, even reactive. I shouldn’t get upset about spilling a portion of lasagna on the floor and my shoe, this afternoon, but I did. The storm, though, passed quickly, the result of proper training and some helping hands. At the end of the day, the best trick to yank you out of a gnarly spell of PSM is to celebrate happy life events with family and friends. Which is what we did. My friend Lori and her husband Christoph visited us from Basel, and we enjoyed a delightful supper at Bridgewater Bistro, here in Astoria. Lori and I grew up together in Beckley, West Virginia. They bought my painting “Elliptical Logic” and picked it up. The occasion for them was the wedding of Christoph’s daughter. On our side, we were cheering Lauren’s birthday, a lovely respite from the challenges posed by her cancer treatment. A wonderful evening for all, and a reminder for me of the abiding power of art to bring people together.