Chanted loudly, chanted lowly on art and other stuff

Or what we think about when we think we’re thinking about country western music but wind up thinking about feminism instead.

Several times a day when I’m on my way to do this or that at my job, I pass by the MoMA gallery-hall installation of the Lynda Benglis video “Discrepancy.”  I’m not sure that I have a clear sense of the piece overall, but I’ve grown quite familiar with the foliage outside the apartment window, and familiar enough with the radio show soundtrack to have a favorite part: the part where there’s country western music playing on the radio.

And when I pass by during my favorite country western music spot, my first thought is what a grand old thing it is to hear country western music playing in the big house of modern art. house, and then that makes me think of something I seem to remember I heard or read in an interview with Twyla Tharp. In talking about the influence on her musical choices she mentions that growing up, her mother, a serious fan of western classical compositions – western meaning European, e.g. Beethoven, Mozart and co. – had a seriously dismissive attitude toward her father’s appreciation for country western – meaning Hank, Merle and singers of cowboy songs. That makes me think of something Louis Armstrong is said to have said when asked about what kind of music he played: “there’s only two kinds of music; good music and bad music, and I play the good kind.”

So you would think thinking about Louis Armstrong would be the ticket to a very different train of thought, and it’s true my mind is almost in the clear because I’m nearly out of earshot of the Benglis installation. But then I’m up on the Robert Heinecken exhibition. And that leads me to thinking what in the world am I supposed to make of the fact that a Benglis video (with good country western music) is installed in such close proximity to a gallery of Heinecken works? Because let’s face it, the nearness of these two – which is enough to blow a persons mind – can only lead to thinking about the Benglis Artforum ad. And thinking about how in some twisted alternate reality her add might have easily been one of his sampled or appropriated works.

And that would mean what exactly? I don’t know. I’ve never known what to make of the ad or his work. What I do know is that none of this goes through my mind; I don’t even spend a second thinking about any of it if I pass the video at any other point other than when George Jones and Tammy Wynette are singing “Let’s Build a World” Together on the radio.

To be continued……