Kurt Schwitters

I'm thinking of the State as an potentially interesting art project, instead of the monolithic monstrosity it's become. 

Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau comes to mind.

When I say 'the state' I mean the social/political arrangement by which I'm governed, which has always seemed problematical to me but has become, as I age, increasingly so.

Looking at Schwitters' work it becomes clear there are no answers, and that I was mistaken to think there ever were. It's a common mistake--to think there are answers--and I know better, having read a great deal of art history. But art history isn't human history, human history is a completely different story: art history leads one to believe that human beings are capable of creating meaningful physical and mental environments full of delight and, perhaps, even some sort of wisdom.

The world belongs to the young, but only as one grows old can one make the kind of art that's humanly habitable.

I read the newspaper every morning for what catches my eye, with the idea that a novel may be made out of what catches my eye. And what catches my eye this morning is a collage made out of things that would otherwise be thrown away, pistachio nuts, an I Voted sticker and a price tag, yellow masking tape, paint. 

Looking at the collage, studying it for the calming influence it has on my otherwise disturbed state-of-mind, I'm suddenly aloft, floating around in an outer space that consists of an admixture of sense and nonsense in which nonsense makes the most sense, free to operate in the universe of dada, sublime and as eternal as the concept of a human being. Slowly and surely everything I see at home and out on the street etc. is a work of art under construction. And so forth.

Central California Conundrum, collage, 14 x 11 inches. Collection of the author, 2020. Used by permission of the artist.