Collection @ LACMA

A poem I wrote for a Philip Guston painting in the permanent collection at the Blanton.  That particular painting is either back in storage or on loan away from Austin at the moment.  

                                         This smoky lovely hangs at LACMA. 

I kept going back to the Guston

because I had never seen them before, the forms.

An almost black form to the left,

and now I’m forgetting already,

a blue one, a regular blue, a totally normal blue,

the kind of blue I don’t really like as it seems particularly the blue of ten year old boys,

to the right.

A streak of blood orange, or maybe a crisscross of blood orange,

beneath, under and behind the blue form.

They are figures.

Definitely early figures, before the shoes, before the trash cans, before the cigarettes,

before sunrise,

and they are definitely smoking.

John Baldessari is, of course, much more practical.

And, Warhol is ambiguously direct, per usual.