Four Openings in Two Hours

“The first thing we had to say about painters was not very theoretical, because it was, 'There's a cocktail party tomorrow evening at such and such a gallery in such and such a street.' What painters meant to us was first and foremost a chance to drink and a chance to eat: we tried never to miss an important opening. So the painters' primary function was utilitarian." - Jean-Michel Mension, The Tribe: Contributions to the History of the Situationist International

This is the mindset, this is the idea. Realized there were four different art openings at about the same time and only one bus ride apart. Downtown, and off at a trot, to the Wally Workman Gallery on W 6th. Wonderful. The art is cool - innovative, layered and mixed, broad and detailed - and the food is great. Glass of white, and fill my plate: baked salmon, asparagus with a zesty lemon dip, light pasta and veggies in a creamy sauce, and a mini pizza square topped with peppers and onions and some spice. No irony in going to an art opening and describing the food. A bit hungover from a night of homemade martinis, this feels fine, exquisite. A tour of the gallery... more art, more food. Then off to the #22 bus stop. There is sex in my vision of the streets and galleries, but no psychology, no sociology.

I like the idea of living similarly to the radicals and artists in Paris in the first half of the 20th century - finding food, drink, and entertainment wherever one can; taking from and giving to others strictly on the basis of availability of resources - but some times I feel like I'm paying lip service to the lifestyle and not really living. The romanticization of poverty seems to become the poverty of romance.

And on this bus, the streets of Austin become San Francisco become Taipei become Atlantis.

On my way to opening #2, on the East Side, walking through a park, very sharp stickers (do we call these painful things "thorns" in New England?) in my leg may be a sign... I got off at the wrong stop. Nice walk though, and I'm none too late. In fact, the first one here, other than the employees. I keep assuming that places with "salon" in their names, or like this one, Method.Hair, are witty names for literary salons and art galleries, when they are in fact hair salons. A beer? Yes, thank you. Must stick to it. Since there are only about ten paintings here, and I stay long enough to drink my beer and not seem rude, at the end, I have stared at each of the paintings long enough to feel like I've bought and owned them all for years.

Go to the address on Cesar Chavez that I copied down for opening #3, and it appears that the art is the clown paintings on the front of the Play Land party store. On to #4.

A porch, and it looks like someone's house. Lots of people too, hanging out out front. Birdhouse Gallery. Keep this buzz regulated - through art, through booze, through music - later tonight I'll see Fear and Agent Orange, but now it's the Smiths (the exhibit is called "This Charming Man").

Another stab at #3 proves that the gallery is actually around the corner: Okay Mountain. Here I am truly impressed with the vibrancy of Austin's art scene. Here also another impression makes, that of the inadequacy of art in general: these paintings are amazing, creative and innovative... but they are still only images on a wall. Just started reading Metapolitics, and one of Badiou's starting points has philosophy comprised of four conditions acting as truth procedures: science, love, art, and politics. From the Preface: "Philosophy, which requires the deployment of four conditions, cannot specialize in any one of them." Truth cannot specialize in any one of them. Accordingly, what impresses me most this evening - walking along E 2nd, toward I-35 - is the composition of the pink and orange cloud horizons against the blue sky. This is science and it is love and it is art and it is politics.

Took a wrong turn, and am "forced" to walk along the river. Stop on a dock to see the bats fly out from under Congress Street bridge in front of the pink ovalries in the sky. Momentous and momentum should not be words, because they imply the multiplicity of the moment, when there is really only this moment.
(8/15/09)