I planned to write about the exceptional and amazing art I saw today. Indeed, works by Nam June Paik, Peter Campus, and Bruce Nauman wowed me, as did a magnificent portal gate and superb glass. But all that amounts to nothing, compared to the realization that museums no longer suffice to cheer me the way they once did. As Rock shows, Indian food, and movies before them, museums evoke Camus’ essay Myth of Sisyphus. Sure, Camus wrote — we know life is absurd in its futility, but knowing that, rolling the rock up hill becomes “our thing,” the constant that reassures us life can get no worse. On the other hand, Camus reminds us that if we repeat something we hold to be a Truth, a constant, often enough, it ceases to strike us as true. Thus does going to see rock bands, to tour museums, and to try foods cease to forestall the blues. Thus these bulwarks stanch the flood of futility and despair that every human faces sooner or later..but not forever. Sooner or later, they lose their efficacy.
Tags: American art, Camus, patent office, video
