Kazim Ali

So, AWP happened. It sometimes seems a bit shameful, a little shameful, to go. Like a form of selling out that also includes fessing up to your departmental cash and admitting to your desire, that might be worse than everyone’s desire, for attention, but might be more kindly described, by you to yourself, as only the human longing for company. But I did go, and those mixed feelings — which also include feeling obliged to represent: the press, the other press, the program, the other program, one’s friends, one’s fanboy or fangirl desires and crushes, one’s “self” — got mixed up even more with other things. The visits to the Senators’ offices, which included a melting-down Staffer, Staffer to the GOPER: Cory Gardner of Colorado, now growing famous for slipping out the back door into a waiting car while his protestors/constituents who he pretends are paid and eighteen of whom he had arrested shouted for their own health and dignity.

Last week I walked into a small 19^th century building in the old part of a desert city to find, in its cool rooms, the work of the artist Lee Kit. His installation at the Sharjah Biennial 12 is an imprecise and warm minimalism. It is layers and drape: paint on cardboard in washes, light projected onto paintings, a dusty word on a wall, the drape of fabric, a line of string dipped in black marking the doorway so we must duck down a little to enter. I thought about the textility of veiling. There is shading over, partial cover, revelations, bright light illuminating corners, making shadows.