May Fourteenth, 2025
A Statement about Genesis
“You don’t really want to call it “an artwork,” you wanna call it a proposition [Proposition = It’s okay to fail.] ya know what I’m saying? … it’s like a question about art; it’s a query… the shit you’re making is not an answer. Mark sure you say it’s exploring something; challenging or investigating, but don’t say it’s solving anything, alright?”
Hennessy Youngman (ART THOUGHTZ: How to Make an Art, YouTube, February 8th, 2011)
“Accounting and budgeting are a kind of practice.”
L’Rain (Keynote Address, Campfire Symposium at NYU, April 4th 2025; paraphrased)
(7) Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. [Translation: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent]
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus], 1921)
I have my yin and my yang tattooed on my forearms. On my left arm is the epitaph of mathematician David Hilbert; “Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen." (We must know. We will know.); on my right arm is a depiction of the Cantor Ternary Set.
Without telling the full tale of Cantor, Hilbert, and their theories and contributions to the field of mathematics, I’ll share with you what these images mean to me:
Hilbert was “the great evangelist.” He believed that knowledge and truth were things we could achieve; we could reach out and snatch the real from the hands of the universe. He believed that all of mathematics could be reduced to logic and made self-consistent. His writing was powerful, well argued, and persuasive. Hilbert, it turns out, was also “the great fool.” His belief in the accessibility of fundamental truths, knowledge, and provability, were ultimately undone by the work of Kurt Gödel.
Cantor was a man driven by God. He was “the diligent scholar”; an avid explorer whose journeys into the realms of infinite numbers lead him to make great advances in mathematics and, if you believe some historians, ultimately drove him to madness and to a premature death. Cantor believed that God spoke through the language of mathematics, a belief which did not make him a terribly popular figure in his day. It wasn’t until well into his career, one that had stalled because of his controversial theories about the transfinite and his deep religious convictions that Cantor’s work was ultimately validated. Cantor’s life was filled with the following paths that only he could see, it brought him little fanfare, but his diligence allowed him to create tools upon which modern mathematics has been built.
Hilbert reminds me to speak up for what I believe and Cantor reminds me to keep my head down and work hard, no matter what others say. Hilbert reminds me that being wrong is a thing of value, for disproving an inaccurate theory is how truth is found. Cantor reminds me that knowledge can be found in remarkable places and that humility, doubt, and diligence can guide us to places most remarkable.
In 1926, Hilbert wrote that, "From the paradise that Cantor created for us no-one shall be able to expel us." In 1931, Cantor’s work would play a fundamental role in dismantling Hilbert’s project and life work.
Hilbert and Cantor’s history is a subtle one, but all history is subtle. Do we think of them as friends, allies, enemies, or adversaries? I don’t know, but I think of them often.
If you ask me whether or not I have an artistic practice, I will say no; a statement I believe to be neither true nor false. It is unprovable. If I am alone, I’ll say that my work is gesso, a primer on which others can make their own practices. If I’m with friends, sluggishly and sheepishly, you’ll get me to admit that, yes, all things, as L’Rain says, are a kind of artistic practice.
Artistic practice is genesis; a divine gift given to only a few, but denied to no one. Anyone can practice genesis (the making of something from nothing), but only a handful of people ever risk doing it; a number made even smaller by the number of people who even have the privilege to attempt such a risk. I admire that risk taking and I admire the act of genesis; above all, I admire those who are willing to take the risk to make.
They scare me, too. They scare me in the same way that those who use the phrase ‘God fearing,’ experience fright. I feel bathed in the light and divinity of those who make, remake, and unmake the world whenever I get the gift of spending time with them.
To say I have an artistic practice is to place myself on that level and I don’t feel the right to claim that mantle for myself.
I have a different kind of pride. I am the man who makes the man. My practice is agencial; to advocate for those who take the risk and practice genesis. I want to make great art by letting the art be made; by being the one who sees the light and opens the eyes of those around me.
I have no answers, only questions. I do not create, I elevate. I share the stories of others, I do not tell my own.
As I’m wont to do, I’ll bring my statement to a close with a short quote; one of my favorites by Lord Bertrand Russell. In 1959, at the age of 87, Lord Russell was interviewed by the BBC. This is the final question asked of Lord Russell and his answer is one I revisit often:
Interviewer: Suppose Lord Russell that this film were to be looked at by our descendants, like a dead sea scroll in a thousand years time. What would you think it’s worth telling that generation about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned from it?
Russell: I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral.
The intellectual thing I should want to say to them, is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.
The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple: I should say, love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way—and if we are to live together and not die together—we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.
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