(just an excerpt from something I worked on long ago...Here's a fragment. The piece is called Museum. As you'll see, it's a museum of the mind...) ------------------------ ...and then, the painting galleries. When we entered the first, it was open: Grass on the floor, moist soil, with weeds, clover and tiny flowers. The walls were empty, but for a few insects. The windows---high up---had cobwebs and spiders. And, in the corners? Paintings. They were piled 7 and 8 high. Without frames. The oh-so familiar sight of canvas stapled to wood, with the 'fringes' dangling to the floor... Rembrandts were there. Raphaels. Caravaggios: It went on. And they sat in corners, skewed and strewn, some on angles, some laying face down. And children were playing with them; some drawing on them, others pulling-off the paint and playing with it. (One of the children tore off the "Vincent" signature---Van Gogh's famous curved signature---and wore it like a mustache. His parents didn't scold---not here: In fact, the children scolded the parents: for not participating, jumping in, etc...) In the next huge room, more paintings---but these, off their backings. Just canvases. The canvases were rolled, stepped on, ripped. And people took fragments of Monets and sewed them onto Courbets. (There was thread and needles everywhere.) Gaugins were rubbed---face to face---against the great Georgia O'Keefe Poppies: The children cried, "they're kissing." And, in the corners: Scraps of great paintings were stuffed in the soil, and watered. A conservator told us: "They'll grow. It takes about 12 years..." And, as we walked through the next room, you could see what he was talking about: Paintings were beginning to emerge: sprouting from the soil, with leaves of mini-artworks; the pigments weren't fully formed, the shapes not fully 'present': But you could see the beginnings of art. And the thing was: These were by masters: That was the point: These were newly-grown paintings by masters, of works we'd never seen, yet which looked so incredibly familiar. Newly-hatched masterpieces. Still growing. Occasionally, one of the masters would walk by and ask: "How's it coming?" A curator---who was watering them at the time---would say: "Well, well..." And the artist would leave. I saw Michelangelo: He was checking on a fresco. He said hi. Then he left... ...This room was nothing but strokes: Paintstrokes, running and playing on the floor. But, this time, it was a kindergarten floor: with pillows and blankets and toys (and glasses of orange juice). Some of the strokes were chasing each other. Some, on the walls. Big bulging impastos splattered all over transparent washes. And---this was a sight: Inks from the royal Chinese Landscapes stood staunchly and judgmentally, while the rapid strokes from a de Kooning nude---modern, impetuous---tried to rattle "those Chinese". It didn't work. The Chinese inks had attitude. They held their ground. A few of them swore at the de Koonings: "Moderns!" they sneered, "they're all the same!" And a Kandinsky blob gave them the finger. And, while this was going on, small sculptures sold 'snacks' to the audience: old palette chips, dipped in dabs of flaxseed oil with a "sprinkle" of turpentine. They were supposed to be delicious. But to the side, an empty room: Just a trickle of light from the windows. And a stultifying stillness throughout. I walked in (no one followed), and, in the corner? A bare stroke from one of the cave paintings at Lascaux (France). It was crawling up the wall, towards the light. As it approached the window, a massive bison---one of those breathtaking, elongated bisons that seemed to leap across the cosmos in those old cave paintings---leapt through the window and flew across the room. It was ballet. The stroke---dumbstruck and in tears---sighed, took a deep breath, and said, "one day". "One day, what?" I asked. I'll be one of those," he said. The bison looked back---hovering in air---and smiled at the stroke. He disappeared through a far window. The stroke stood up, stretched, and formed a 'mini' bison---long, leaping, and graceful---then contracted and said, "not yet". He crawled out a window and disappeared. I left the room and whispered to one of our historians: "Do you remember the paintings at Lascaux?" "Certainly." "Did you ever see one move?" She smiled, looked both ways, and whispered: "Once. A group of bison flew out of the cave and over the horizon." "What did you feel?" I said. "I couldn't breathe." Then: "I've never told anyone..." And we walked on... ------------------------