Avant-Garde
Jan 16 2023
Black pants.
Black turtleneck.
Black socks.
And looking incongruous,
trendy athletic shoes
to complete the look.
The commercial logo
painted over, of course.
The uniform
of the avant-garde.
As if to declare
I am an artist,
a sensitive soul
and iconoclast
who lives by his own rules.
That insists
the man is unimportant,
the only thing that matters
is the work.
The colour of mourning.
The colour of extremes,
no grey
no compromise.
The colour that absorbs light
and ghosts through the world unseen;
subversive
secretive
incognito.
Or not a colour at all
but its absence;
like a black hole, a void,
a bottomless well
of gravity.
How ironic
that the last thing he wants
is invisibility.
A struggling artist,
misunderstood
and obscure.
An originalist
who dresses just as you'd expect.
This is a photo of Iranian American artist Tala Madani. It accompanied a piece on her in the latest New Yorker. I didn't read the article, know nothing about her, and this poem isn't in any way intended personally or critically. It's just that I was immediately struck by her oh-so predictable look, and by how ironic this is: creative types, proud non-conformists and originalists, who all wear much the same uniform. As if they weren't radical individualists , but rather a guild, a cult, a strict fraternity; an exclusive members-only club!
Although I really can’t object. After all, I believe in dressing for comfort. And how sensible, not having to waste any time or energy thinking about what to wear each day!
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