Blues for Smoke (2012)

I must be getting old.  For the first time in a long time, I went to MOCA and really had trouble absorbing what on earth was in front of me.  I scoured gallery after gallery of seemingly disjointed themes, media, messages and eras.  Some of the stuff is disturbing in a foreign way -- the rest of the country is exposed to the plight of black people in this country based on what mass media chooses to show and on what message the powers at be want you and I to hear.  Some of the work is equally depressing depending on what your context is in life.  I suppose I went in to the Geffen today thinking a typical afternoon of modern, uplifting art and after I add in the hour I spent going through Taryn Simon's "A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, I-XVII", my mental state was pretty down.  The work is brilliant but I guess I'm just not in any mood to think about serious stuff today.  The holiday season is hard enough as it is and a barrage of blues in visual and audio form is a little too much.