"The Desert is Not Silent", an art exhibit featuring works by Fawzi Swei, Salah Shagroun, and Saif al Islam Gaddafi, did finally make it to NYC. Alas, I was not there, due to circumstances beyond my control. Like the 'Almighty Dollar' (or lack thereof). I have been to the exhibition's website (http://www.thedesertisnotsilent.com/) more than once, and in a way, have "seen" the exhibit, though in a rather cold, impersonal way. I can see the art, but it's not something I'm engaging with fully. If I had to offer a critic of the artists showcased there (uh oh, I'm about to run my mouth), I'd say they're the perfect way to bring Libya "in from the cold shoulder that the West has turned to her for so long." Art is of course one of those "universal" methods of communication. Within "The Desert is Not Silent", there's the lifelike portraits of Salah Shagroun, that are quite like Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", the "fusion" style works of Fawzi Swei (who attended art school in San Francisco, and was one of the first world artists to utilize computers in the creation of his works), and of course, the "Salvador Dali with an Arab flair", Eng. Saif al Islam. I highly doubt without as big of a name as The Leader's son involved with this exhibition, that it would've gone very far. I hate to say that, because the two others involved in this project are immensely talented, as is the young Mr. Qadhafi.
Art is one of those things that really transcends language, country, culture, everything. As the Greek physician Hippocrates once said in Aphorisms (sect. I, no. 1):
Ὁ βίος βραχύς,
ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,
ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,
ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,
ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.
In transliteration:
Ho bios brakhys,
hê de tekhnê makrê,
ho de kairos oxys,
hê de peira sphalerê,
hê de krisis khalepê.
The Greek text is usually translated into English as:
Life is short,
[the] art long,
opportunity fleeting,
experiment fallible,
judgment difficult.
SOURCE: Wikipedia, "Ars longa, vita brevis" article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_longa,_vita_brevis
In other words, art will still be around a longggggggg time from now. Physicians like the man I'll marry STILL take the Hippocratic Oath (drab green, female sheep, Alex!), and people STILL read Greek tragic plays like Aeschylus' Agamemnon (I was forced to read it as part of a college English class once, and didn't quite get WHY reading an old GREEK play would help my English writing skills at all. I guess it was more to expose us to different forms of LITERATURE instead of writing). Aeschylus is said to have authored between 70 and 90 tragedies, but only seven of them have survived to this day. Alas, some forms of art DO NOT survive the test of time, but fade away. Five hundred years from now, perhaps the works of William Shakespeare will have faded to a tenth of what they are now. I certainly hope not; reading "Othello" or "Romeo and Juliet" or "Richard III" or "Henry VI" is still a source of pleasure for me.
Naturally, literature and the written word is just ONE form of art. There's sculpture, like Michelangelo's "David", Rodin's "The Thinker", etc. There's a curious sculpture across the street from Powell's Books in Portland, OR (1005 W. Burnside) that I have YET to figure out a "meaning" for, but you know? I don't really care if it has a "meaning", I just find it one of those quirky and fun things about Portland. It's art. It's a fun city... one I've been to many times (three or four times a year for the last 25 years or so), but have yet to see everything in it. Sculpture is pretty much everywhere, and can either be "functional"-- like the Nutty Narrows Bridge (built so squirrels can safely cross the street, decorated for various holidays) here in Longview, or just for "entertainment" like the statue of the squirrel outside the Longview Public Library...
Seriously. Someone in the United States of America was "nutty" (bad pun, I know...) enough to build not only a bridge so that a rodent with a big, fluffy tail could cross the road, but also carve a wood statue of said rodent with big, fluffy tail on the grounds of the public library and close to the local college.
Anyways, art is everywhere. It can be man made-- like the skies and the trees, and the fishes in the sea... uh, I think it's time to go to bed now. When I start quoting 60's and 70's love songs in my blog post, it's time to hit the sack and cut the lights.
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