epstein as our de sade moment, lolita, fantasies, to enact or not?, art of chiharu shiota, red thread of fate, marilyn minter
yesterday i was grateful for fruitful work on my photography…
today i am looking forward to more photography and reading…
this beautiful exhibit caught my eye... i wish i was in, or could get to, london...
During Sleep, 2026, Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy of the Hayward Gallery. © DACS, London, 2026 and Chiharu Shiota.
Chiharu Shiota, the Artist Making Human Connection Tangible
Inspired by the Japanese Red String Theory, the artist’s enchanting London exhibition makes visible the invisible connections that tether us to one another
i do a search for japanese red string theory and find this...
Red thread of fate - Wikipedia
The red thread of fate (Chinese: 姻緣紅線; pinyin: Yīnyuán hóngxiàn), also referred to as the red thread of marriage, the invisible string theory and other variants, is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese mythology.[1][2] It is commonly thought of as an invisible red cord around the finger of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation, as they are "their one true love".
i think my wife and i might be connected by such a string... i also wonder if there was a similar string connecting my masculine to my feminine self?...
and i learn about marylin minter... feminist artist who seems up my alley...
Marilyn Minter (born 1948) is an American visual artist who is perhaps best known for her sensual paintings and photographs done in the photorealism style that blurs the line between commercial and fine art.[1][2] Minter currently teaches in the MFA department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
there is a documentary too...
PRETTY DIRTY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARILYN MINTER - DOC NYC
NYC PREMIERE A vibrant portrait of Marilyn Minter, the trailblazing feminist whose glamorous, provocative, and unapologetically sexual work has redefined contemporary art’s boundaries for nearly five decades. Moving between biography, studio practice, and cultural history, the film traces her rise in New York’s art world, the controversies she sparked within feminist discourse, and the enduring influence of her lush, subversive images. Fast-paced, stylish.
this article describing jeffry epstein as our marquis de sade moment in culture... where the rich and powerful believe themselves above the poor, weak and powerless, not by virtue of their good fortune which may or may not have been based on talent, ability and hard work... how they come to view themselves as above the law and entitled to abuse for their own pleasure... an indication that a culture's rich and powerful have become clueless and decadent and all they know is to push more misery on those "beneath" them while they indulge in gross hedonism...
The Marquis de Sade of the Upper East Side
An atheist, materialist, and hedonist, de Sade was above all an aristocrat, which is to say that his understanding was of “Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong,” as he describes it in his 1791 novel Justine, Or, the Misfortunes of Virtue. Related to the Bourbon monarchs by blood, the infernal nobleman was a creature of his class dedicated to his own pleasure and power. Whether monarchism or republicanism, de Sade’s own politics were far simpler, for whatever served him was his ideology. Were de Sade alive today, it could be imagined that he’d charm and ingratiate himself among representatives of divergent factions, perhaps equally at home with a fascist like Stephen Bannon and an anarchist such as Noam Chomsky — identically to his modern acolyte, the millionaire rapist Jeffrey Epstein.
and this...
Far more accurate would be to see in Epstein the dark shadow of de Sade. In the originator of Sadism, we encounter an infernal figure who, beyond even the facts of his own perversion and criminality, intimated a cruel and oppressive politics that were seeded in aristocracy, tended in capitalism, and are now harvested in fascism.
this, in a nutshell, is the absolute statement of decay of society... it makes sense that the rich and powerful would attempt to lock in their "superior position" through fascism in the end... also a sign that their debauched and corrupt behavior is heading for collapse... can we have the collapse without them taking a lot of inocent people with them?...
the epstein crowd was apparently into de sade and lolita...
i have read lolita and my labido was engaged by it and i was not as horrified as i would have liked to be by it... in the primal libidinous mind, sex is sex... to be desired and indulged in every form and fashion... and so... how do we tell ourselves stories like this and not enact them?... do we ban the book and not tell ourselves these stories?... it seems such stories will live with or without lolitas in print... is it better to permit this story to be told but with an education on why humbert, humbert is such an objectionable human being?... how do we keep fantasies that should never be acted out constrained to the world of fantasy?... is it inevitable that we become what we fantasize?... can we control our fantasies?... is civilization the construction of a cultural context that allows dark fantasies to exist but equips us to resist acting on them?... if we could suppress fantasies in a healthy way, where do we draw the line on what should be suppressed?... for example, my trans-feminine explorations started as fantasies that i am now enacting... there are those for whom this is abhorrent... i don't believe it is... i am a consenting adult so i am not harming myself... but am i normalizing something in myself that might be harmful to others?... i don't believe so, but many people do?... i am not in any way trying to legitimize pedophillia... jeffrey epstein, the marquis de sade and humbert, humbert are all extremely objectionable characters... i am just asking, where are the boundaries and who sets them?... my thinking about boundaries is that one's behavior should not hurt another human being... there is a difference between a human being too young too consent in a self-knowledgeable and unmanipulated way... but there are masters of manipulation that can harm what we would normally consider a consenting adult... so, if do no harm is the line, how do we define harm?... is breaking someone's heart harm?... can i harm just by being an anomalous presence in the room?...
scenes from the storm of humanity...
Today workers hung a banner with a giant portrait of Trump on the Department of Justice building.
some photos from this AM...
