LOS ANGELES 2020 | LOS ANGELES 2021 | ITALY 2021 | BERLIN 2021
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About Suturo

suturo.com is a new dynamic and interactive website that reacts uniquely to each visitor as they navigate the site, allowing for exploration that fosters new formal and conceptual perspectives between the art, the poems, and the viewers.

Project Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Eugene Ahn

Website
VAMA Creative

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Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

I bring ye wine from above,
From the vats of the storied sun;
For every one of yer love,
And life for every one.
Ye shall dance on hill and level;
Ye shall sing in hollow and height
In the festal mystical revel,
The rapurous Bacchanal rite!
The rocks and trees are yours,
And the waters under the hill,
By the might of that which endures,
The holy heaven of will!
I kindle a flame like a torrent
To rush from star to star;
Your hair as a comet’s horrent,
Ye shall see things as they are!
I lift the mask of matter;
I open the heart of man;
For I am of force to shatter
The cast that hideth -Pan!
Your loves shall lap up slaughter,
And dabbled with roses of blood
Each desperate darling daughter
Shall swim in the fervid flood.
I bring ye laughter and tears,
The kisses that foam and bleed,
The joys of a million years,
The flowers that bear no seed.
My life is bitter and sterile,
Its flame is a wandering star.
Ye shall pass in pleasure and peril
Across the mystic bar
That is set for wrath and weeping
Against the children of earth;
But ye in singing and sleeping
Shall pass in measure and mirth!
I lift my wand and wave you
Through hill to hill of delight :
My rosy rivers lave you
In innermost lustral light..
I lead you, lord of the maze,
In the darkness free of the sun;
In spite of the spite that is day’s
We are wed, we are wild, we are one.

Artwork
2020
Tom Dunn @tomdunnart

Poem
Dionysus
Aleister Crowley

Explore more in Artists and Poems

Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

Presented with Durden and Ray

Exhibition Team
Steven Wolkoff
Alexandra Wiesenfeld
Jenny Hager

Artists
Eugene Ahn, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Arezoo Bharthania, Jorin Bossen, Debra Broz, Nancy Buchanan, Gavin Bunner, Ismael de Anda III, Jacci Den Hartog, Yasmine Diaz, Tomory Dodge, Tom Dunn, Roni Feldman, Yrneh Gabon, Bia Gayotto, Mark Steven Greenfield, Kio Griffith, Gronk, Jenny Hager, Katie Herzog, Geraldine Hudson, Phung Huynh, Carmine Iannaccone, Bryan Ida, Ichiro Irie, Ben Jackel, Monica Juarez, Alexander Kroll, David Leapman, Constance Mallinson, Dakota Noot, Sean Noyce, Claudia Parducci, Lara Porzak, Rebecca Ripple, Gabby Rosenberg, Christopher Russell, Liza Ryan, Roland Seto, Theodore Svenningsen, Holly Tempo, Doug Wichert, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, Steven Wolkoff, Torie Zalben

About Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2020

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Curatorial statement

Early in the pandemic, several facebook friends posted that they were looking for poems to read at a funeral. Given the number of deaths around the world, this request was probably too common.

We often turn to poetry to mark big occasions, to help give these moments more meaning, to better convey the sentiments we feel but cannot express, or to help make sense of things we don’t fully understand.

In the middle of this pandemic, and all the other crises running alongside it, when so many moments are limited to words shared at a social distance, the need for poetry seems much greater.

In Artists and Poems we are inviting artists to pair their work with a poem that has meaning for them given the current state of their world. The pair of works – poem and visual art – are presented together.

Artists and Poems creates a platform for contemplation, responding to the turmoil of recent events through a lens of art and poetry. The juxtaposition of visual art and verse provides insight into both the artists’ work and the poems they have chosen.

The first show was a survey of Los Angeles artists in the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election. The second show, Artists and Poems: Los Angeles 2021, covers the period from Election Day until Inauguration Day. Future shows will explore other cities and other curatorial frameworks, and will include additional curators.

--- Steven Wolkoff, February 2021