A short life of trouble

Marcia Tucker

"A short life of trouble,

forty years in the new york art world"

(edited by Lisa Lou)

I lived myself into the life of Marcia Tucker like I could meet her tomorrow. Maybe suddenly she would be standing in front of me at an opening in Manhattan, I thought. Then I would not hesitate to tell her how inspiring I thought her book was and how much I actually cried while reading it.

Then I realized Marcia Tucker is not here anymore.... I will never be able to meet her.

Architects:

Seijma & Ryue Nishizawa

SANAA 

Marcia Tucker you could say culminated in the building of the New Museum on Bowery.

After having been fired as an secretary at the MoMA really young with these words:

"why aren't these sharpened" Lieberman asked (after she would not come back to work on a Saturday)

"Because you are not doing it the right way. You stick them up your ass and turn hard, that's what does it"

Broke, daring and not compromising. She went on to assist a portrait painter, and gradually by meeting the right people and throwing herself with passion into the Art World, it lead her to an incredible carrier at the Whitney.

How i wished I could have seen some of the exhibits that she curated. She brought forward artists like Bruce Nauman and Richard Tuttle in the 70's. As a strong feminist Woman of the time, she managed to arrange solo exhibits for Ree Morton, Gladys Nilsson, Nancy Graves, Jane Kaufmann, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell. Thinking this was nearly 40 years ago, it is quite amazing, since still there are still few and far between the female solo shows.

When her exhibitions became to progressive for The Whitney, they fired her. 

But, here comes my favorite part, instead of letting that bring her down. She put the little money she had left about $1,200 and began her adventures with "The New Museum". Building a new Museum from the bottom up.

Although she resigned her position as the Director of the New Museum in 1998 and died in 2006.

There would have never been a "New Museum" as we know it without her daring enthusiasm to start it and bring it forward.

The New Museum is still a progressive place where they give new Artists Solo shows. Like Urs Fischer and Rivane Neuenschwander.

Dear Marcia Tucker! 

I wish I had met you! 

You are one of those that tells us: 

"Yes, You can do it too!"

  

I Hid My Love!

John Clare 

1793 - 1864

Ah those first summers of love:)

I  HID MY LOVE

I hid my love when young till I

Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;

I hid my love to my despite

Till I could not bear to look at light:

I dare not gaze upon her face

But left her memory in each place;

Where'er I saw a wild flower lie

I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,

Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;

The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,

The bee kissed and went singing by,

A sunbeam found a passage here,

A gold chain round her neck so fair;

As secret as the wild bee's song

She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town

Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;

The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,

The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;

And even silence found a tongue,

To haunt me all the summer long;

The riddle nature could not prove 

Was nothing else but secret love.

Unknown Bird

W.S. Merwin

Will be the America´s 17th Poet Laureate

Unknown Bird 

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

Love thou art high!

Emily Dickinson

(1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson was such a fantastic romantic.... would this work as a wedding poem?

LOVE THOU ART HIGH

Love - thou art high -

I cannot climb thee -

But, were it Two -

Who knows but we -

Taking turns - at the Chimborazo -

Ducal  - at last  - stand up by thee -

Love - thou art deep -

I cannot cross thee -

But, were there Two 

Instead of One -

Rower, and yacht - some sovereign summer -

Who knows - but we´d reach the Sun?

Love - thou art Veiled -

A few - behold thee - 

Smile - and alter - and prattle - and die -

Bliss - were an Oddity - without thee -

Nicknamed by God -

Eternity -

I knew a Woman!

Theodore Roethke

(1908-1963)

I knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;

Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:

The shapes a bright container can contain!

Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,

Or English poets who grew up on Greek

(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,

She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;

She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;

I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;

She was the sickle; I poor I, the rake,

Coming behind her for her pretty sake

(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

Love like a gander, and adores a goose:

Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;

She played it quick, she played it light and loose;

My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;

Her several parts could keep a pure repose,

Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose

(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:

I'm martyr to a motion not my own;

What's freedom for? To know eternity.

I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.

But who count eternity in days?

These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:

(I measure time by how a body sways).

So I live and so I dream

So I live and so I dream

So I hear and so I think

Rich I am 

Imagine

Rich of Life

Imagine

with the Golden Light

and the waves flushing 

up the sand while I

Sink into my womb chair 

or my plateau bed

The golden light 

 imagine

that I am rich

Rich of life

Rich of gift

The one who can give

Give a dream of life

Golden with the sound of

the unknown

An ocean of secrets

to share

So I live and so I dream

So I hear and so I think

I will greet the sun again

Forough Farokhazad One of the most influential female poets from Iran. 1935-1967 I will greet the sun again

I am sending my greetings to the sun, To the tender river that filled my veins, To the raining clouds that carried my long dreams And to the sore aging of poplar trees in the yard: They escorted me in all visits of dried times. I am sending my greetings to the crowd of crows: They always brought me the fresh perfume of nights’ crops. And to my mother who stayed in the mirror, And looked like my aged face. My greetings to the earth, The earth that the thrill of repeating me, was cramming beneath its aroused inside, by green seeds. I will come, I will come, I will arrive. With my curls: the winged scent of the soil With my eyes: the bright insight of the night And I will bring all flowers I picked from the other side of the wall. I will come, I will come, I will arrive. And then the gates will be invaded by love, And there, I will greet everybody who loves. And, I know: There will be a girl, still standing in front of the gates, those soaked gates in the deluge of love… I will greet her again as well.