Love
The Short Image is where I’ll offer each Thursday a few words on art, culture, and elsewhere. This week, some fault in us.
It looks like crime is up in Baltimore. A couple different friends of mine have recently been mugged—at gunpoint—and there’s been a string of break-ins in my usually break-in-low neighborhood. Also, more tragically, May was the most murderous of months in the city for 30 some years.
No doubt there’s a whole raft of reasons for the more crime and I’m neither smart enough nor wanting enough to talk about why. It’s a big web of things and I’m no good at pulling apart the gluey strands.
Meanwhile art here is humming along, with openings and book releases, street art, art orgs, our gigantic mess of an art fair almost ready to go, lots of music, drama and plays. Our art college is a juggernaut, churning and boiling into the future.
“Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.” someone famous said. “Art is not a crime,” someone else. The FBI has an Art Crime Team. The Futurists were really into youth and violence, which is a—if not the—crucible of crime.
I don’t want to worry about it. I don’t want to think about getting mugged. I mostly want to worry about art. I mostly want to look at it or make it. But sometimes maybe you don’t get to choose what to ignore. Sometimes maybe crime is the sore spot that is symptom of the hurt.
This year, I’ll miss our big mess of an art fair—we’re going away for a month—and I’ll miss a month of our crime. I’ll see the art and crime of other cities instead.
What a disarray it is. Art, Crime, Worry, Hurt—Love.
Joseph Young lives in Baltimore. He has written about art for many magazines, newspapers, and websites, and his book of very short stories, Easter Rabbit (Publishing Genius), was released in 2009. His art has been seen in galleries and other venues in Baltimore and beyond. Check out his digital collage series, Newer Comics.
Latest posts by Joseph Young (see all)
- Quick thoughts on Matt Cook’s quick book - August 10, 2017
- Love - July 2, 2015
- MUSEVM - June 25, 2015
