Alex Andy Phuong

by: Alex Andy Phuong

Be audacious Independent Iridescent Color the world And paint over What is dark

Bold

Previously published in Sheila-Na-Gig Under 30.

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Cyber Art

by: Clara B. Jones

for Chris Campanioni (and Art in America, 2014)

1. Congolese have eyes like spores, and Cubans drink coffee constantly. You lost control of your life— it’s tough, but you will get over it. Why? Why did you support the Yemen War? You have been a model citizen, but actors earn less than chefs, and, on a related subject, what is your favorite logic board? You need to figure it out since your life is in disarray, and you should never foreclose your options. You think most artists like snails, but Ibsen was an exception to the rule that made you remember your partner who left two point five years ago, and now you feel less joy—but if you can’t be happy here, you can’t be happy anywhere. Congolese have strong boundaries, so you made gavagebased fois gras before Mobutu’s lithograph sold for eight thousand dollars though Christies® prefers to show Cyber Art [Mobutu emojis are trending on Twitter®], and Fujifilm® no longer sells monochrome [the company remains superior but not solvent]. Your mission was to monetize your project while hiding from ICE in Brooklyn before you and Mobutu ate catfish at Le Bernardin® before flying to Cuba for tacos and espresso with an orange twist.

2. What if Henrik Ibsen had been a survivalist...if I recite Robert Creeley poems will you promise not to leave me...how do you know what to believe since grace is a fiction though when you move to Kinshasa you’ll eat groundnuts each day (tissue homeostasis and early human development)... you bought lithium 1001 batteries that won’t blow up and your @Twitter feed has 2 million followers but female billionaires buy Mesolithic Art because they have good sense and impeccable taste in shoes (what is your political party and who is your girlfriend now?— fake tweets)...you have a friend who hates snails though parasites engulf their hosts in mutant cells and Aztecs didn’t build the Sun Pyramid that

Weston photographed before you swam in the Amazon where piranhas bit your left leg— fish foraging for food——please pass the collards.

3. Warhol met Frankenthaler at Venice Biennale while Louise Bourgeois had a solo show on Sean’s yacht floating perilously close to Franco’s cat lying on a blue dock faded by time. Paid family leave is a wise choice since activists need venture capital when sculpture is trending though “all art is photography.” Congolese own cameras that can change your life but before you find solutions collectors must set a price— conditioned to sell in a market dominated by Gober’s Law about creative geniuses and groundnut stew. Acts of war in an era of synths drive the motherboard of culture-drones shooting images of war over Congo where form is function and post-internet markets are not about museums.

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