I think sad is beautiful!!!!
I'm for more sad in art, we need to get it out. . .this world is changing. . .things are dying, new things replace them. . .and not all of them are very cool at all. damnit. . .it's ok to express melancholy.
it's the way I feel a whole lot. and, it's not surprising really. it's healthy to be sad sometimes, despite the pressures from the cult of positivity. in my experience, growing up in the deep american suburbs of the 80s & 90s, positivity is a coping mechanism. . .but also a way to oppress those who struggle against total assimilation into the monoculture. but it might be healthier to let people express their sadness over the loss of more diverse, less commercial subcultures, and the loss of unmanufactured space. . .progress is good AND awful, both. in a progress-only world, a lot of invisible constituents are forced deeper into invisibility. . .(more on that later)
I recently installed a billboard on the side of my house in cabbagetown. . .in response to the sad, sad "cleaning" of the c'town wall, a symbol of territory ownership by the professionals who gentrify this place. the image, posted above, is a sad one, but also beautiful. . .in the tradition of opera, drama & requiems. sadness, which a lot of people feel right now, is important to acknowledge. billboards are our most common form of public art. . .and most all of it is advertising (images with words, almost never - images only). Large public advertising for the most part is exceedingly HAPPY! when one feels sad, looking at screaming smiles sure can be antagonistic.
just talked to louise shaw last night, about the line between positivity/unquestioning acceptance of corpo-norms (the currrent norm of the american mainstream), and outright foolish denial. thin line, indeed.
-kt
