[a funny aside, there was a lot of talk in that meeting as well about the eventual movement of SMMoA into the ICALA. There were light tracings of the impulse, one being to follow the artist to the eastside from west. that added various opacities of class focused comments, cascading the board room. I nodded my head and we all murmured in agreement. yes there was historically a huge redline between the two sides and yes that was LA. the infrastructure of it, the tour of it. The way that time warps here in a different way someone said (unnamed because they are a friend of my ex and im still feeling 100 types of ways about it all, i wonder if they remember me) how LA was one of the places at the farthest edges of this time zone, at the farthest edges of the day. Another light trace and probably the biggest truth was that the museum could no longer afford the rent, they were a non collecting institution after all. This was said to mark the lack of a donor pool, but I'm not sure if i buy that but what do i know its only my second meeting. 


Something else of an aside, on the same path though, was this moment I had when I was in marfa sometime last year, spring maybe. Friends and I sat at the kids table in the beautiful donald judd room with inlaid squares of pebbles and chairs that kiss the very edge of tables we sat at a dinner with kelly little hernandez, zoe leonard, rafa esparza, cameron rowland his gallerist and the nice people running marfa tim and his wife. We/they were talking about the dissolution of isp, a stinging subject because i had gotten an interview and though it was a long shot i wanted to have my nyc theory moment. More and more talk about the institution again, as such. But there was a specific mention about the ICA model, an unfriendly laugh. Its impulse of mutation, it’s anti regionality in service to a collation building across the field or maybe they said it was gloablization? Miami was mentioned as a joke for sure. was there even on there?  Kunsthalles are not mentioned but are mutations of this non collecting model where instead of a canon, the contemporarty is built out. I thought of mcdonalds and that was base so i sat down quiet, didnt wanna let that slip. What do they do? Serve an internationalist art public? i dont think so. in the meeting there was talk of it being an institution of firsts. a legitimation machine, useful. thats why there needs to be so many of them. there are always more artists so there needs to be more museums.I wonder if there is an MFA program in every city an ICA is located. probably. i wonder how many of those graduates show there, not many probably. 
In the meeting there was talk about living artists and what the museum can do the aim them. I agree. What does a chinati artist tomb dia money beautiful artifact residency gallery city center do? Serve the very small public is orbits around itself, the southwestern tex mex food heavy on my plate. I love things with sour cream. They all laughed and I think about it when i go into the meetings, though its only my second time. They are working on a big archival show thats why we are thinking about the past. it sounds great. the curators have been turning it over since their curatorial retreat and the results are strong. The future was an item on the agenda we didnt get to though i felt more comfortable talking about that. I wanted to plug my friends work, an archive and a bike tour. Kinda boring stuff but you know what they do the reading and dont pretend. I didnt think to bring up the greater economy of institutes of contemporary arts, because i was in the flow of the meeting and wanted to keep up, they of course had things to teach me as the youngest and least accomplished person in the room. I walk in there lightly stressed, though I used to work at the front desk at the museum and wear my leftist pride plainly. i was a laborer and therefore am a figuration of what a holistic council may offer an institute of contemporary art. 


Is my insertion of these anecdotes, the same impulse or gesture as asher? Could that be infrastructure, gossip or maybe just memory can that be as much a document of art practice as the rebuilding of walls. am i too plain, too obvious? too boring even? asher and others withold in such a way that allows for space in their work, the covert political commentary is one way to make work while still being accepted by the institution. when will i learn!? im still learning i guess.   ]