Wild Ryman
The power of the picture-maker that changes the world is that I can see again. Robert Ryman's work knocks me outside myself. Try it: sustain the focus to feel your neural patterns begin to resonate with a particular sympathy. Linger inside a poem and the rhythm of the subway molds towards that form. Stagger from the theatre and the street becomes a drama ripped from that stage. Dwell inside the painting and its warp will shape your walk in Florence, New York, Beijing. When the world refracts through another's words and pictures, at that moment, I know that I'm alive. This wild Ryman clarified me in Philadelphia while I was walking with Diana, talking about history, revolution, and neighborhood transitions. A recent short essay on Robert Ryman by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker: Abstraction Problem .