WEBVTT

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OK, I want to read a poem for
Robert Colescott, who is here

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and who is a friend of mine.

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And I had the honor of
writing a poem for when

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he did the Venice Biennale.

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He was the American
representative at the Venice

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Biennale in Venice, Italy.

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And so I wrote this poem,
which went in his catalog.

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And so I just
wanted to introduce

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Bob Colescott, great painter.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I don't get a chance
to see him too much.

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So I will read
this poem for him.

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It's called "Robert
Colescott's One-Two Punch

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at the Venice Biennale".

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"1.

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Before anything else at
the first crack of day,

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light prowling through your
studio during the hush hours

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after midnight.

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In the dry air surrounding
the desert where you live,

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a stone's throw outside
of Tucson, obelisks

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of cactus standing tall,
guarding the entrance

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to your sanctuary.

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The first thing you do when
you approach the white canvas,

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stretched, four corner
square before you

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on a huge white wall, is
paint the surface bright red

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after thinking
about it for days.

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The tug and pull of your
brush strokes over the surface

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creates swirling
shapes of music that

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move in and out of themselves,
magical shapes that

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are mysterious
backdrops for paradoxes

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about to become known.

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Roiling at the point of
birth, inside the womb

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of your canvas, red shapes
that seem to burst and boil

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over there, seams hot
as volcanic lava flows.

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Boiling and roiling-- red
underneath its own skin

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of flames, red as
blood pulsating

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through veins underneath skin.

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At the point of
creation, the muse

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lifting the idea, an embryo
that will evolve into something

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within a canvas, a womb filled
with blood, painted bright red.

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Your adrenaline
flowing now, Colescott,

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flowing onto the surface
through your refiguring brain,

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birthing the idea, layer
after layer of colors swirling

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through the snapshot
you have taken

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inside your head of what
you're about to do here.

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Whatever comes to you,
like improvised music,

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will find its way
up there, stroked

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as images upon your
sea of red primer

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where what the viewer first
sees will provoke humor then

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pleasure before fast
becoming a problem.

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Shapes, emerging as color
fields take on form,

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break through the
surface of red primer

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that is a womb filled with
blood, a letter from yourself

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to yourself, a conversation
if you will, here

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and there, bodies lumped down
grotesquely on the faces,

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primeval in their distortion,
blotchy with Earth tones that

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shock the senses, pulled
in and appalled by what

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they think they see here.

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At first glance, lumpy
body shapes of brown,

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and black, and white, touched
with hints of pink and yellow,

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look balmy as caricatures.

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Demons cut loose from
a bad dream swirl,

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point guns at the river viewer
from your canvases, Colescott.

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A doctor holding a
hypodermic needle

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stands next to a priest
holding a severed black head,

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two gorillas stabbing another,
two gorillas stabbing another,

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a skeleton with a green
head leers off to the side,

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red chains around a wrist
in a painting invaded

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with orange crabs, a tale
of gumbo spilling out

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of a black woman's mouth,
a pig in the corner,

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a cup of coffee
perched on her nose.

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The Hunchback of Notre
Dame in blackface

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moves inside a circle
holding a blonde next

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to a white something,
cannibalizing a black man's

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body over a black
football player,

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"the death of the old
mulatta", chains and guns

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in Saudi Arabia.

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Jesus-- Jesus, contemplating
the world for lunch

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as a golden hamburger.

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Black slaves chained to tree
trunks, blooming cotton candy

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leaves that hold maps of
a new world and Europe.

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Look like red lip
monkeys or gorillas

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in front of a pile
of bananas and corn,

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while somewhere else a
silver Choctaw nickel

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holds a half-breed
Negro smoking a cigar,

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whimsy as gorillas and
mulattos do the tango

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a rogue white bilingual
cop speaking out

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both sides of his
mouth castigates

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a Mexican and black
man drunk on sleep

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amongst skulls,
rats, and garbage.

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Cactuses growing from
ghettos of rock and sand.

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Broken down dreams, is that
how they choose to see us,

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Colescott, as a man behind a
crumbling wall of red brick

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threatens, firepower in his
hand, a raised black nightstick

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about to back up the badge on
his chest, spitting invectives

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and realism?

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3.

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And what are we to make of
these besotted misbehaving

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figures, lumpy shapes of
clay posing as humans,

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their actions mirroring what we
see and do each and every day?

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Are we to go--

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are we to go beyond
the tough aesthetics

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rendered here, gloating
idiots bamboozling the senses?

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What we think and know
of ourselves cloned here.

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Pretenses stamped into
our heads as cartoons.

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We grow ourselves
into caricatures

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of popular culture you turn
on their heads through parody,

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skewed standards
of beauty pierced

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by your cryptic social
commentary, myth, allegory

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imploded.

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Symbols of religion,
religion, turned upside down

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on their head, heads.

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Crudeness, biting
satire, or messages you

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send to yourself mapping fears.

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You hold frustration and anger
communicated through madcap.

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Sophisticated literary allusions
rendered lush and lavish colors

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through painted narratives.

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You reveal the mongrel
history, the interconnectedness

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between races.

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Power, manipulated when
standards are control.

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Beauty arbitrarily stolen
from the eyes of the beholder,

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and tell us Africa
is a source of life.

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Black artists here in America,
the avant-garde cutting edge.

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And it's a subversive
agenda you are working here,

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Colescott, the art of irony
subfusing everything you do,

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exaggerated manners,
distortions,

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reversal of images brought
down to us through history.

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Silly white invention
laid down on us as truth.

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And I see music in your
paintings, Colescott-- rhythm

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and mastery, your own
way of viewing truth.

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Magic as surprise,
things revealed

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once we have gone
inside and look

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beyond the archetypical images.

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You paint deep down
inside content,

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what has evolved over time--

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the view through white
eyes and black eyes too.

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There up on your
canvases, the world

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revealed in glorious
colors, narratives

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that allow us to walk
right through an open door

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to enter the freedom
of your expression.

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In astonishment,
we hear the music

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of Duke Ellington and
Miles Davis jumping

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right out of your paintings.

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White, brown, black, red faces
tinged with pink and yellow.

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Races transmogrified through
reversals of history--

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blonde and black lumpy figures
of clay, posing as humans."

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[APPLAUSE]

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