I am still ALIVE

Jim Hodges
A diary of flowers (realness) 1993
"Since the late 1980s, Hodges has consistently turned to everyday materials as starting points for his art, transforming them into objects of unsentimental beauty.  From 1993 to 1996 he sketched flowers on napkins obtained from grocery stores and coffee shops, each a keepsake of a particular experience or emotion, like a page in a diary.  A form of visual poetry, each "page" is spread out against the wall, part of a constellation of drawings -
like a field of wildflowers -
resists a chronological reading." MoMA text

Hodges ended Diary of Flowers on January 9, 1996,

the day his close friend and fellow artist, Felix Gonzalez-Torres died of AIDS.

In addition,

I don't like to stick my nose into other people's business, especially in a museum, but I couldn't help myself, when a little girl, took a handful of Felix Gonzalez-Torres artwork.

I admit it's pretty and it's pretty tempting.

I said to the little thief "That is someone's artwork."
The guard corrected me
"It's OK to take the candy."


Copyright 2011Phyllis Odessesy. No usage without permission.