Trying to find a way to get back to normal is proving to be quite a challenge. But it's like the post-Covid world: so much happened during the pandemic and the attendant lockdown, it's hard to remember all the trauma that came about because of these events.

Was reminded that this week would have been Carmen's birthday. His death was such a shock! He had no symptoms of any kind, and the autopsy came up negative in terms of Covid. He died of heart failure, but there had been a sudden increase in death from heart failure at that time. It was especially prevalent in people between the ages of 40 to 60. There were articles about this, with no definitive conclusion. 

But i'm trying to start going out, to start seeing things again. But what's happening? Haven't been to museums in a while, but in the last two weeks went to MoMA (Georgia O'Keefe show of works on paper) and The Whitney (Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Josh Kline exhibitions). At the Whitney, as with so many places in the last two months, was amazed to find that i knew very few people. Used to be, at press previews at museums, Larry and i would know at least half the people in attendance. Now, where have those people gone? Ran into only three people that i knew. Two people from AICA (International Art Critics Association), and Brad Balfour. That was it! With Amei Wallach, discussed how Jaune Quick-to-See Smith creates paintings that reference motifs and techniques from recent art (Johns, Rauschenberg, David Salle, et al) in order to question and subvert the dominant art. But we also noted that we felt isolated, because so many of the colleagues and acquaintances who were part of the art world just aren't around.