self portraiture part 2
i don’t take portraits anymore because i gave up. well, that’s not really accurate. after a lifetime of consuming books and movies and magazines and tv and unavoidable politics, and being around people and being alone i have been able to determine that there is simply not an audience for my body to be understood. it can’t be. words get misappropriated. books can only be turned into movies because someone interprets the book. we make meaning out of what we see. the artist’s intentions are not in the work (a good thing for art, but a terrible thing if you have an agenda). wanting my body to speak for me is an agenda. a desperate one i can have empathy for but an agenda nonetheless. and i had to let go of my grip—it wasn’t going to work. i cannot control what happens when i am looked at. abandoning portraiture is abandoning the agenda, the belief that i am able to course-correct. that i am in control somewhere.