A Giant Sucking Sound

Ask not if you’re in a cult. Ask which one?

If this sounds like something I would say, you’re right. I’m saying it. But I only say it because Todd Greene said it first. An awful lot of what I set down in words are completely cut, pasted, and borrowed from Todd. He sings, says, draws, paints, and set it all up, and then I repeat what he’s up to in other contexts. I’ve been studying him since I was seventeen which means the exchange has gone on for most of my life. I sometimes convince myself it’s reciprocal.

In case this is as far as you’re going to read, please know that Todd has an art opening at Galerie Tangerine tonight. The exhibition is called “A Giant Sucking Sound.” Todd’s opening receptions often function as a debrief or meet-up for the people I think of as my scene. Come out and be inspired and meet people. Everybody’s invited to art. I hope you know that.

Yes, that’s Michael Myers in the above image. But it’s a detail in a larger piece. Todd puts the cult in culture, and his audience is well-served by the the analysis that is his vision. See if you can find Mr. Myers in this?

Isn’t that something? Check this out.

Imagine where we’d be if millions of Americans gave some time to this one.

At last night’s screening of Same God, I noticed that one of Dr. Hawkins’ friends remarked that, in a weird way, her act of embodied solidarity and Trump’s commandeering of the Republican party and (for four years) the U.S. military perform a similar function: They both expose us. They both show us who we really are. This immediately brought to mind what I take to be one of the most significant art works of the Trump era. Yes, it’s Todd’s. It’s called “The Accidental Exorcist.”

Do you see the face of the former president in this image. It helps me have compassion for him, because it helps me see that he himself has succumbed to a wicked spirit. We become what we host body. Todd didn’t say that, but I can imagine him saying it.

Here’s what Todd once said about domination and laughter: "Supremacy can scoff, smirk, grimace, but it never belly laughs from the diaphragm. That requires humility, fragility and the ability to recognize hypocrisy especially in oneself. The Accidental Exorcist may be ventilating, but he is not laughing."

What does Ross Perot have to do with any of us? Tune in and see. I have no images from tonight’s show, but I will have a few later on. I might add them to the post if you ask nicely.

Happy Halloween.