Monday, January 3, 2022

Past: Miriam Cahn

"like drawings made by children to be diagnosed by therapists."

"painting's bright red beauty a violent thing. ... balloons filled with red liquid. Rubbed of noses, devoid of hair, flesh the color of factory chicken. The manifold meanings of the adjective tender, "showing gentleness" as well as "sensitive to pain." "(of meat) easy to cut."

"Like heat maps for sensation, it could be unendurable cheese, e.g. "the red stands for love" but its their tenuous walk over the chasm of schmaltz that feels like its relationship to horror - fall into a meat grinder or sentimentality, crushed like Precious Moments figurines. There's something so fragile about our ability to feel empathy, to feel tender. We're stupid creatures that are easy to break. The ability for Cahn to at any moment move firmly into the world of melodrama feels as much a threat as violence, she could destroy them with a heart emoji."