Objective
“The FBI does not reach conclusions. You know that’s a phony question because the FBI doesn’t reach conclusions.” -Brett Kavanaugh
Do we live in a post-truth era? In a time when our outgoing president supports conspiracy theories and whips up a base of people to believe so deeply that the global pandemic is nothing more than a politically motivated hoax that they claim this even on their death beds from the very illness itself; and when there is no possible way to reach a middle ground between two factions that operate in seemingly different realities in which the same nation looks like two vastly different places; and when even the most basic ideas about health and safety are met with derision by a defiant group who believe their personal liberty takes precedence over the well-being of the masses and who do not believe the experts telling them how to keep themselves safe, we must consider that perhaps we have moved beyond a time when fact held sway over opinion when it came to how we operate as individuals and as a population at large.
Jessamyn Lovell spoke to us from New Mexico. Her work, Dear Erin Hart, began when she was travelling to install a show about her estranged father who she followed and photographed in the method of paparazzi. During this time, her wallet was stolen from the gallery. She went through the process of getting her license and other items replaced but a while later, Lovell received a call from an investigator asking if she knew a woman named Erin Hart and whether she had given her permission to use her drivers license. Lovell began trying to track down Erin Hart in the same way she found her father. Although it had been easy to located and track her father, Ms. Hart proved more skilled at evading being found. With Lovell’s drivers license, Ms. Hart did things like rent a car with someone else’s credit card. She subsequently got all manner of parking tickets and damages that fell on Lovell’s shoulders. Ms. Hart also tried unsuccessfully to check into a very fancy hotel as well as incurred charges in a Whole Foods in Lovell’s former neighborhood. Lovell is quick to acknowledge that her privilege as a white woman of means allowed her to get out of the many charges that Ms. Hart racked up. To hear what Lovell, who is now a licensed, practicing investigator, did next, listen to the complete interview.
Robin Pogrebin is a reporter at the New York Times Culture Desk and co-authored the book The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation which outlines what a mistake was made in his appointment. For Pogrebin and her co-author, it was the desire to get more facts and the truth that was obscured by the pre-conceptions of people on both sides of the political spectrum during the Kavanaugh hearings. The investigation took an honest look at Kavanaugh’s life from childhood to the moment he appeared in the public eye and, ultimately, disappointed both sides in that they neither exonerated nor fully convicted him of the accusations leveled against him. Upon its release, people on both sides weaponized the book before having read it, speaking very much to the wider situation we find ourselves in where there is no middle ground and minds are made up and unchangeable, sometimes based on very little. To hear more about this, and Pogrebin’s work at the NYT Culture Desk, listen to the complete interview.
A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket:
We have perhaps transcended truth in such a way that it is no longer possible to point to objective fact as a basis for uniting everyone in the same reality.
Interviews are available on iTunes as podcasts, and for Android please click here. All weekly essay pieces in a shareable format are here. The full archive of interviews here.
Books to Read
What are you reading? Add your titles to our reading list here. Learn more about The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly.
Deadlines
CERN invites artists to apply for their residency program – in their own words: Artists of any nationality or creative discipline are invited to submit a project proposal involving research and production phases during a residency at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva. The artist will also have the opportunity to expand their research and test its applications through Barcelona’s scientific and cultural network while engaging with a wide range of communities. To learn more about this unique opportunity, visit the website. Deadline is December 7.
Ann McCoy
Ann McCoy is a New York-based sculptor, painter, and art critic, and Editor at Large for the Brooklyn Rail.
She was awarded a 2019 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. She lectured on art history, the history of projection, and mythology in the graduate design section of the Yale School of Drama until May 2020, and taught in the Art History Department at Barnard College from 1980 through 2000.
She has written about artists working with projection including William Kentridge, Tony Oursler, Nalini Malini, and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Ann McCoy and Kentridge did a conversation at the American Academy in Rome for his Tiber project, “Triumphs and Laments”, which was published in the Brooklyn Rail.
Ann McCoy’ work is included in the following collections: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Australia, the Roy L. Neuberger Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. Ann McCoy has received the following awards: the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the Asian Cultural Council, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Award, the Award in the Visual Arts, the Prix de Rome, the National Endowment for the Art, the Berliner Kunstler Program D.A.A.D., and the New Talent Award of Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Ann McCoy has exhibited in the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Annual, and has had one-person exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Poland, and Berlin. She is known primarily known for her large format drawings, work with projection, installation, and bronze sculpture.
Ann McCoy worked with Prof. C.A. Meier, Jung’s heir apparent for twenty-five years in Zurich. She has a background in Jungian psychology and philosophy. She has studied alchemy since the early seventies in Zurich, and Rome at the Vatican Library. Most of her work is based on her dreams, and their relationship to alchemical texts, and Christian alchemy in particular. For McCoy, alchemy is a symbolic language of processes dealing with spiritual transformation. Incarnation of spirit into matter is the key concept of the alchemical practice. The imagination is the gateway to the gods.
What Are You Thankful For?
There is a certain gratitude in knowing that somewhere out there is the opportunity right for you. While you may find your path to this moment scattered with rejection, know that ultimately your efforts will pay off – it is simply a matter of persistence. Give yourself the chance to know the special pride that comes with connecting to an opportunity that will move your career forward. Below are a few international calls that might just be the next step in your artistic journey.
CERN invites artists to apply for their residency program – in their own words: Artists of any nationality or creative discipline are invited to submit a project proposal involving research and production phases during a residency at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva. The artist will also have the opportunity to expand their research and test its applications through Barcelona’s scientific and cultural network while engaging with a wide range of communities. To learn more about this unique opportunity, visit the website. Deadline is December 7.
The British Council invites collaborative applications between British artists and those in eligible nations and states on the theme of innovative responses to climate change. This challenge comes with the prospect of up to £50,000 to realize the project. For more information including eligibility, visit the website. Deadline for submissions is December 13.
All Around Culture aims to foster collaboration and an inclusive artistic ecosystem across the Arab world. Eligible communities are: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Lybia and Syria. For more information, visit the website. Application deadline is December 25.
Praxis Center believes to the core that the only opportunity you surely will not achieve is the one you don’t apply for. We encourage our students to take risks, to put themselves – and their art – out into the world without fear of hearing the word no. Rejection is inevitable, but so, too, is acceptance. There is but one path to this end, and it depends on your willingness to take the risk. Give yourself the chance to be thankful for an opportunity earned.
Brainard Carey is an author, artist and educator. He is the director of Praxis Center for Aesthetics. He has written six books for artists; Making it in the Art World, New Markets for Artists, The Art World Demystified, Fund Your Dreams Like a Creative Genius, Sell Online Like a Creative Genius and Succeed with Social Media Like a Creative Genius.
Photo credit: British Council
Robin Pogrebin
Robin Pogrebin is a reporter on the Culture Desk of The New York Times, where she covers cultural institutions, the art world, architecture and other topics.
She is also the author, with Kate Kelly of the book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation,” published in September 2019. At the Times, she has also covered the media industry for the Business Desk and city news for the Metro Desk. Prior to joining the Times in 1995, she was an associate producer for Peter Jennings’ documentary unit at ABC News and, before that, a staff reporter at The New York Observer.
Her freelance work has been featured in magazines like Vogue, Town & Country and Departures, along with several book anthologies. Pogrebin, who also teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts, is a frequent moderator, radio guest and speaker. She lives in New York City.