The Nancy Rubins show at Gagosian is the real deal. Not one wasted wall nor expectation disappointed. Spread over four galleries on two floors this energetic show needs to seen. The huge newer gallery to the south of the original space has never been used so successfully. It is devoted to an ambitious, spectacular forest of kayaks that delight and inspire! Pewter colored boats strung together with high tensile wires exploding thirty feet into the air.
We were shown smaller bronze editions that somehow don’t lose their magnificence even though they seem like maquettes for the larger works.
The art was violent and beautiful just as one would expect. Huge, crumpled graphite on paper pieces bearing down like storm clouds. The whimsical collages..covetable. A most enjoyable experience.
Nancy Rubin lives in Topanga, Los Angeles.
My day began with breakfast at Cecconi’s with John. We talked about an art project for his store.
I called TW but he is in the midst of an obsession so cannot be relied upon to carry me away from mine. My obsession to get out of dodge, to leave these filthy streets.
There was a rat that had to be dealt with in Malibu.
Chatted with travelling companion. Listen, every day that passes until I get onto that plane to Paris is absolute torture. I CANNOT wait. He thought I sounded pensive. Not really pensive, just bored, uninspired. Bored of LA. I need an enriching, invigorating, salubrious experience.
I am glad that I am taking a friend. It is always so delightful to see things through new eyes. I think we both need to run away. What we don’t need is more drama, prying eyes or complicated love affairs.
Even my more evenhanded friends seem haunted at the moment. Haunted by the prospect of no prospect. The economy, the war, the oil spill..the groggy, ineffective Obama administration.
I remember moving here. I thought, back then, that anything was possible in LA. I was wrong.
I am tired of the interminable struggle of living. Every day is a monstrous challenge. Every fucking day. Driving, parking, dealing with half-wits. Driving, parking, dealing with half-wits.
Although I woke up this bright Sunday morning feeling a little less pessimistic I swerve from irritable and discontent to the inner peace of absolute acceptance..then it’s back to the dark side. Malcontent, that’s what I am. Even looking at art yesterday, as inspirational as it was, could not stop me yearning for Europe.
I wondered what steps I could take to not be on my own.
I thought about joining a dating site. I tapped in the name of the site. As soon as the site popped up I was reminded of a time when all I wanted was to hear the reassuring buzz of new messages. Looking at that site was incredibly depressing. Page after page of cock pics, ass pics and naked men. On either side of the multiple cock pics were ads for porn sites. Mountains of white, heaving flesh.
I have no currency on sites like that. I am invisible and rightly so, I have no reason to be there. No reason to be judged simply by my age, weight and the size of my penis.
I know that this plan works very well for many men. I have heard from friends how relationships form and prosper. Many things work for other people that have never worked for me. The ease with which I see my friend become a fully fledged and engaged gay man has shocked me into knowing just how stunted my own experience has been.
The prospect of never being touched or kissed again fills me with fear. Is it so unreasonable to want a man who loves me as much as I love him?
If I have learned anything these past few months it is this: my heart sings when I am in love. Not when I have sex that is disconnected from my feelings. I wish I could! I wish that I had been made that way. But, the truth is..if I had been made that way I would have been killed by AIDS years ago. Before we knew what AIDS was. My reticence saved me though ultimately kept me on my own.
I have never been so eager to meet someone yet so disconnected from the possibility. I am resigned to the fact that it is totally unlikely to happen.
Friends, I suppose, are just as good.
I will be travelling with a great friend. I am grateful for that. Grateful to have a friend with whom I can laugh and although I once wanted more it is with the same resignation that I understand that what I have is just as good.
Some people will always be there. Until the very end. I hope that by sharing this journey he remains my friend. Seldom have I experienced such ease with another and have, on occasions, confused that with being in love.
I spent almost the entire day with Dom. We saw the show at Gagosian, ate lunch in Beverly Hills then I came home had a nap and cooked dinner for the both of us. Carrot and ginger soup, pork chops and peas then cups of British tea. It’s a quarter after 12 and he just left. Shooting the shit, putting the world to rights.
As for sex addiction? What of that? Well, I have been really well-behaved. Not acting out, not objectifying, intriguing, not making inappropriate comments, not looking at porn, not…well, not doing anything that might compromise my sobriety.
I think my friends here worry about me. Think that I might be depressed. They might have a point. It has been a very, very hard six months. Not with people, but with banks and aspirations and an inability to make art.
The trouble with LA is the lengths one has to go to make sense of every day. I have been here for five years now.
Five long years in purgatory.
On Friday night I had dinner at Soho House with a new friend. It was like dining with a ghost. A beautiful man with no soul. A beautiful man who referred to me as an uncle. Again. That fucking word. Asexual uncle. I didn’t pay for dinner. Uncles pay for dinner.