From Chapter 36 of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (Herman Melville; 1851):
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.
The focal point of Whitman’s installation put me in mind of this passage, which, as it turns out, occurs in the chapter from which I read at this year’s marathon.
The above is my image of detail from Heidi Whitman’s work at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. My younger daughter and I were there this weekend for the thirtieth anniversary of the Moby-Dick Marathon, for which we were both readers. This year’s event commemorated Melville’s 1841 departure aboard the whaleship Acushnet: It has been 185 years since the adventure that yielded Moby-Dick and 175 years since the publication of the novel.
The above are my images of details from the following works of art: Le Jardine (1959-60) by Herbert Gentry; Floral Still Life (1880-90) by Charles Ethan Porter; The Piper (1953) by Hughie Lee-Smith; Four Days and Four Nites (2019-2020) by Jim Denomie; and The Suicide of Mr. H. (1961) by Asger Jorn.
On Friday morning at the Art Institute, I encountered the painting above, “Composition” (1936-37) by Maria Helena Viera da Silva. The plaque beside it attributes the following quote to the artist:
“I paint my amazement, which at the same time is delight, fear and laughter. I do not want to exclude anything from this amazement. I want to paint pictures with many things, with all the contradictions.”
What Sin Is Purged Here in the Circle Where We Are Standing? (2023)
Tammy Nguyen’s painting was not on view the last time I visited the Toledo Art Museum — at least I’m pretty certain it wasn’t. But even if it were, this was the visit during which it demanded my attention. Here’s a link to more about this startling and compelling work.
At the Smart Museum yesterday, I experienced a similar sense of discovery when I encountered Patrick Nagatani’s Beware Artist. We were in the area for the Sunday matinee of An Iliad at the Court, which is drop-everything-and-get-your-tickets theater. We had seen Timothy Edward Kane in this role three times before — live in the 2013 production and in the 2020 production at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures Museum (formerly, the Oriental Institute) and streaming during the pandemic. Mesmerizing as he was then, he is even more spectacular in this iteration of The Poet. The post-show discussion with Kendall Sharpe of the University of Chicago Graham School and Charlie Newell, former artistic director of the theater, was time spent well, too. We returned for the evening performance, which featured Kane’s understudy, Jason Huysman. To me, the role of The Poet is not necessarily to be interpreted as Homer but rather as one of many singers of the Iliad, so it was a gift to hear another vocalist, to encounter the material in a different way. While both actors impart the heroic, the beautiful, and the doomed, however, Kane is, as Newell suggested in his remarks, a demigod, and like Achilles, his work towers above that of other men, his shield illuminates worlds, and his voice stops hearts.
After sleeping in this morning, we walked, then finished all of the yard work in time to watch the Vera C. Rubin Observatory “First Look Event.” Sharing the link with my sister and nephew, I wrote, Humans may be warriors and conquerors, but we are storytellers and stargazers, too.
Nerdishly 