Saturday Strolls, Objects, and Looming Hyperobjects

The weather was so nice yesterday--in the waning days of a Chicago summer, I made the comment to a friend, "We need to find a planet where the weather is always like this." Later on, I made the comment about how verdant Illinois is compared to the brown southwest, and how having a big home on Lake Michigan would allow viewing the horizon in all seasons in all kinds of conditions. What I realized in retrospect is how a stable variability of climate, including long stretches of gray weather, is the norm we want to return to. There are no quixotic escapes from the planet on floating cities (seasteading) or drop cities--unmoored from the democratic stresses on ideas of freedom. This is the reason why when we are high on dopamine caused by good experiences, they wind up on social media announcements, or even in text messages: "Gorgeous weather...on a bike ride. Love these perfect weather days. End of summer is closing in..."

There are people that think endless sunny days are boring and stressful. The climate affects us at deep psychological levels, what Timothy Morton calls "Hyperobjects", which have nothing to do with the weather forecast. With climate change, (or the blithely euphemistic, "Change of Climate"), we are faced with the state of mind when the sun sets, and the next day (or season) arriving in complete contrast to yesterday. Even in my huge house on the lake, the sky changes, and clouds and a brisk lake wind immediately change the mood--Time for long-sleeves or even a jacket.

This leads me to part two of this essay which has to do with the experience of art on warm sunny afternoons. Art is all about context. For lots of people, this is their only opportunity to engage with art. They probably rarely go to museums, which are a different art experience driven by the race to get one's money's worth for the price of admission: We race to look and understand art how we have been conditioned by the "museumification" of art, i.e. meticulously curated to exalt it to "high importance", even if the works displayed may have not been regarded by the artists as being their best work. (There are some Picassos in the Art Institute that I can see him doing in an afternoon and being unserious about it).

Art fairs are loosely curated and juried; It is mostly a commercial opportunity. Some art fairs are opportunities to look at clever or cool ideas, but they are almost the polar opposite of what is displayed in museums or galleries, which ideally exist for people to slow down, observe, think, connect, and leave enriched by the experience. But typically, that enrichment dries up if not continually hydrated. The other aspect of art fairs that I find interesting is the accumulation of objects looking to find a place in a space or on a wall. Some art finds homes in museums, some in private residences, some in closets, or basements.

As an artist, I find solid intention by way of series: You simply do it to make another one. But after a while, you need to find other series that continue what you've already done in some logical way. This is why I think artists need to study or be mindful of systems, and why the weather is so morally instructive, hydrating the mind drying out by routine and boredom.