#rirkrit

…and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. [1]

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Tomorrow Is the Question!, subtitled The New Music of Ornette Coleman!, was the second album by American jazz musician Ornette Coleman, released in 1959 by the Contemporary Label. This release would be Coleman's last album for the label before embarking on a highly-successful multi-album series for Atlantic Records later on in 1959.

Revered for its lack of piano, Coleman’s intentions for Tomorrow Is the Question! was to create space for soloists on the album to roam freely around the tune and rhythm. Coleman’s enthusiasm for the improvisation in harmony and jazz is present and apparent through this release.

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s large-scale wall piece, untitled 2017 (tomorrow is the question, january 21, 2017), 2017, reiterates the tenacity of the Coleman’s phrase, painted atop headlines and articles printed in The New York Times – the majority of which relate to the inauguration of 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Displaying the pages of the “paper of record” unfolded, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s bold question addresses the emotions, fears, and uncertainty felt throughout the world.

With its very literal title, Ornette Coleman’s Tomorrow Is the Question! and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 2017(tomorrow is the question, january 21, 2017), 2017, both investigate the anxieties and hopes that are found through the endless possibilities of the unknown future.

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Image: Top: Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled 2017 (tomorrow is the question, january 21, 2017), 2017. Acrylic and newspaper on linen 89 1/4 × 73 1/4 in 226.7 × 186.1 cm. Bottom: Ornette Coleman album cover of Tomorrow Is the Question!

Text: [1] Excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a Young Poet," originally published in 1929.

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 2017 (tomorrow is the question, january 21, 2017), 2017, is included in The Times, on view at The Flag Art Foundation June 1 – August 11, 2017.

I spent 9 weeks in Italy last spring where I picked up a few pro-tips for traveling abroad that I’d like to share with you.

First: Never wear Toms shoes when exploring 15th century castles. The steep and twisting stone steps inside the turrets have been worn shiny and smooth and they slant downward. The soles on Toms have zero traction and you will slide down several steps while clutching your cell phone in one hand and letting your water bottle fly out of the other hand. If you are lucky, you will catch yourself on the thin railing that is barely anchored into the wall and you will do the sign of the cross, even though you are not catholic, as your feet slip out from under you. Mamma mia!

Second: When your gas tank hits the quarter full mark, refuel at the next available gas station. Don’t be sentimental and drive all the way back to your village to the one gas station in town, which will run out of gas a few seconds after you start pumping fuel into your tank.  

Third: Consider carefully the purchase of souvenir bricks. I paid €10 for an art brick fabricated at the Venice Biennale in a brick-making factory art installation created by one of my favorite artists Rirkrit Tiravanija. He creates spaces for social interaction in a visual art medium called relational aesthetic.

The average brick weighs a little over 4 pounds, which did not seem especially heavy until I carried said brick for hours while walking around Venice on a hot and humid summer day. At dinner that night, I showed off the brick to friends who humored me with polite questions about my unwieldy purchase. One friend lent me a canvas tote bag to replace the frayed paper bag I’d been carrying like a baby under my arm. The twine handle had imprinted deep red painful creases into my hands.

Fearing the unfired brick might break, I packed it into my carryon bag instead of my checked bag for the flight home. The art objet gained weight as I lugged it down the long, crowded main terminal at Malpensa in Milan to the VAT refund and customs area where several hundred other non-Euro zone residents stood in line waiting for their refunds. 

Pro-tip 4: Apply for your tax refund at one of the offices that can be found in the larger cities to avoid the VAT line at the airport. You will still need to stand in the customs line but that’s one less line in which you must fend off harried travelers who don’t always appreciate the concept of queuing. Also, fewer opportunities for someone to bruise the backs of your legs when they bump into you with their luggage carts because they’re busy looking down at their cell phone as they push forward.

At the security checkpoint, the solid rectangle loomed suspiciously in the x-ray scanner, calling out for further inspection. The security officer held up the brick, suspiciously wrapped in plain brown paper, and asked, cos'è quest.

“It’s art!” I exclaimed with a bright smile.

“Please unwrap it,” he instructed without humor.

I eagerly overexplained that the brick was a commentary on the plight of workers. The Chinese inscription on the brick meant “never work” and there were 14,086 of these bricks in the art work, which was the quantity needed to build an ordinary house for a small family. The proceeds from the sale of bricks benefited a nonprofit that supported worker rights in China. The artist’s work was as much about the place as it was about the object and he insisted on direct experience in the moment with the art.

The security officer held up his hand as if to say “you have been bamboozled into believing this brick is art” and then wiped the brick with one of those little tissues to test for explosives before waving me through.

I was also carrying two fragile ceramic souvenirs, two laptops, and assorted reading material to entertain me on the long flight, the combined weight of which far exceeded the 6 kilo limit even without the inclusion of construction material. I’d already paid a fee for overweight checked luggage so I probably should have just packed it in there. I figured nobody ever weighed the carryon bags.

After settling into the waiting area with a prosciutto and mozzarella panini, I noticed an airline representative roaming around and picking up carryon bags to test their weight. If  a bag passed muster, he placed a sticker on it. When it was my turn, he struggled to lift my bag, not expecting the clearly excessive weight. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled as he placed a sticker on my bag.

Changing planes at Flughafen Frankfurt, I had extra time and decided to stretch my legs before the longer leg of my trip home by walking from the domestic flights terminal to the international terminal. I may have negated the benefits of stretched legs by compressing my spine.