Hoo-boy!
It’s been a week.
Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body (1858)
Do you feel that? Do your bones feel as tired and brittle as mine? I feel wrung out, my edges feel crumbly. What a thing this life is, what a joy, what a terror! I am awed by its majesty, it’s power. I am awed by this confusion of creation, this accidental existence. It is so truly extraordinary that we are all made of the same stuff–marrow and tissue–and yet that we are so diverse. That somehow chains of chemicals dictate that our hearts should beat on the left sides of our chests and that we should have two lungs, but that these self-same chemical compounds also build mountains and form deserts. We are forged from iron, made of carbon, we are so incomprehensibly big. Does the assembly of our bones differentiate us from one another? Or do our bones connect us? I wonder. Curiosity fuels understanding, we know; it fuels anthropology and technology and all the other -ologies, it fuels creativity. Curiosity fueled Jean-Michel Basquiat in his constant, albeit short-lived, exploration for understanding. When he was six he was struck by a car and broke several bones. While in the hospital, he was introduced to Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body, which he then recreated later in life in a series of drawings adapted from the text. This piece, Thyroid, feels like an appropriate homage to us, to humanity. Underneath everything else, humanity is bone and humanity is carbon. Humanity is like Basquiat’s line etched on paper–irrepressible yet finite. Basquiat’s 1982 Thyroid (from Anatomy Series) is my pick of the week.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Thyroid (from Anatomy Series), 1982 | Image courtesy of Anina Nosei Gallery
PS, WE DID IT, BABIES! Here’s to the future.