{"id":37,"date":"2011-11-07T21:28:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T21:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/?page_id=37"},"modified":"2011-11-07T21:31:29","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T21:31:29","slug":"keith-foskins-art","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/?page_id=37","title":{"rendered":"Keith Foskin’s Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Mortal\u2019s Immortality<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday I drove to Sterling, Colorado.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there must be some core deficiency in my being, but I can\u2019t relate to the desolation of the high plains in the dead of winter.\u00a0 More than once during that 100 mile journey, I asked \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s good I had a compelling answer.\u00a0 I want to see Keith\u2019s show.\u00a0 That kept me going.\u00a0 The drive home was easier, not because I was moving closer to my comfort zone, but because Keith\u2019s images and concerns were racing through my mind.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see the drabness of the Pawnee Grasslands; only the brilliant colors and dynamic forms of Keith\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

I arrived in a lonely town, parked in an old-fashioned lot in which everything is paved, found the uninspired French building on the Northeastern Community College campus, and stumbled onto the Youngers Fine Art Gallery.\u00a0 The incongruity of the art within the gallery and the immediate and extended settings annoyed me at first.\u00a0 In a bit, I convinced myself that the incongruity enhanced the art.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to see something new and fresh if everything blends together in complementary and undifferentiated ways.\u00a0 That certainly wasn\u2019t happening here.\u00a0 So, for those who have eyes to see, there was much to learn.<\/p>\n

I appreciate Patrice\u2019s work, but on this day I came to connect with Keith.\u00a0 I believe Keith has 14 paintings in the show.\u00a0 Each piece engaged me, but I held onto the six Vogue inspired \u201cfemme fatales\u201d, \u201cThis is What Democracy Looks Like,\u201d and \u201cInterior Internal\u201d the most.\u00a0 Questions abound \u2013 why is the hand of God so prevalent; is that Keith in the center of \u201cThe Readymade of Bill\u2019s Arm\u201d; what\u2019s the interaction between Scarecrow and Smiley Face; how do I work through the adjacencies of bold, definitive images with tentative, shadowy sketches; and can I resolve the enigmas Keith brings to life \u2013 e.g., he honors the \u201cdemos\u201d even as he portrays its contemptible degradation?<\/p>\n

I felt a mild disappointment by the presentation of the show in the written word.\u00a0 Patrice\u2019s work is labeled \u201cprivate.\u201d\u00a0 Keith\u2019s work is labeled \u201cpublic.\u201d\u00a0 This is benign for Patrice.\u00a0 Patrice\u2019s work is<\/em> private in the vernacular sense of the intimate and personal.\u00a0 Keith\u2019s work reveals the foundation of a truly political purpose, but there is no genuinely public world where there is no genuinely private world.\u00a0 In fact, the most challenging and defining political act is to create a just differentiation between the public and the private, and to chart their most appropriate and effective interactions.\u00a0 A genuinely political statement must always intimate the parameters of its appropriateness and the limits of its application.\u00a0 This is precisely what Keith\u2019s art does.\u00a0 It is never just \u201cpublic,\u201d leaving someone else to do the \u201cprivate\u201d stuff.\u00a0 It speaks directly to the keystone political task: differentiating the public and the private.\u00a0 It respects both.\u00a0 It expects much from both.\u00a0 And it protects the implications of the distinction.<\/p>\n

Although it is a genuine and intensely held understanding, I am hesitant to express my strongest sentiment about Keith\u2019s work.\u00a0 My hesitancy has two sources.\u00a0 First, we are living during a time in which language has been emptied and violated \u2013 justice means torture; freedom means surveillance; morality means majoritarian habits; less government means an expanded military and preemptive war; fiscal responsibility means cutting taxes coupled with undisciplined spending; \u201cno child left behind\u201d means \u201cevery child held back.\u201d\u00a0 But what I want to put into words is not a linguistic twist or spin.\u00a0 I mean precisely what I want to say.\u00a0 I am serious, and I want to be taken seriously.\u00a0 But even if I\u2019m taken seriously, I\u2019m still likely to be misunderstood.\u00a0 That becomes another form of not being taken seriously.\u00a0 My hesitancy stated and now set aside, I am serious in thanking Keith for creating works of art that immortalize<\/em> him.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how I approach the possibility of a mortal\u2019s immortality.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what the greatest sin against \u201cgod\u201d is.\u00a0 I do have a sense of the greatest sin against human life \u2013 rebellion against human existence as it has been give (\u201ca free gift from nowhere\u201d says Hannah Arendt) to us on earth.\u00a0 Life on earth is the essence of the human condition.\u00a0 There are many ways to sin against the human condition, but the most persistent and damaging is the tyranny of \u201ceternity\u201d \u2013 the idea of something that transcends this world\u2019s time and space, and is understood to be the genuine or authentic reality. \u00a0There is no more fundamental violation of our human condition than to rebel against the reality and primacy of human existence as its limits and possibilities are manifested by living on earth.\u00a0 Life on earth within the realities of the earth is the essence of the human condition.\u00a0 How we form and honor that human condition is the quintessential political question.<\/p>\n

Eternity wars against human life on earth.\u00a0 Immortality celebrates the highest accomplishments of mortal life on earth.\u00a0 Eternity challenges human authenticity and purpose.\u00a0Immortality affirms remarkable human achievements.\u00a0 Eternity invites the Great Escape.\u00a0 Immortality requires the Great Engagement.\u00a0 Immortality simply means endurance in time; to penetrate life on this earth beyond our human mortality.\u00a0 It reveals the potential greatness of mortals: their ability to produce things \u2013 art, works, deeds, and words \u2013 that deserve to endure and, in some measure, do endure beyond their creators.\u00a0 Through these things, mortals create a world on earth that endures even as they pass away.<\/p>\n

Keith has produced such things.\u00a0He has created work that endures beyond his mortality.\u00a0 I mean much more than the stretched canvases and dried paint that remain.\u00a0 I mean the insights and images and possibilities and hopes and fears and anger and love and joy that continue to live with rich vibrancy in a world now denied his vitality.\u00a0 Keith did that for us.\u00a0 In his own words, he said he wanted to offer \u201c\u2026images that provoke and cajole, rather than be.\u201d\u00a0 He took on the work of creating beyond himself; the work of an enduring vitality, not just existence.\u00a0 We are doubly blessed \u2013 we continue to learn and to grow through his work, and through the immortality of his work the mortal Keith is, if not with us, still accessible to us. Thanks be to the human condition.<\/p>\n

February 28, 2008<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Hoffert
\nDean of the College of Liberal Arts (emeritus)
\nColorado State University
\nFort Collins, CO. 80523<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Mortal\u2019s Immortality On Monday I drove to Sterling, Colorado.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there must be some core deficiency in my being, but I can\u2019t relate to the desolation of the high plains in the dead of winter.\u00a0 More than once … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38,"parent":32,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-37","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37\/revisions\/40"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.klfoskinlegacytrust.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}