近距离内射合集

What should we make of Jared Weiss鈥� recent paintings at Santa Fe鈥檚 Ellsworth Gallery, in which figures from the local art scene pose and perform in spectral, jewel-toned desert landscapes of emerald, sapphire and magenta?

Although the figures are lumped together in the center of each painting, they aren鈥檛 interacting. They gesture dramatically, but their gestures don鈥檛 correspond with anyone else鈥檚. One snarls while throwing a brick. Others appear to be dancing or doing tai chi. Someone rubs their eyes. At least two hold motorized weed trimmers, despite there being no sign of vegetation anywhere. It鈥檚 as though they鈥檝e been cut out of other, unrelated scenes and pasted together at random 鈥� which is more or less what Weiss does. At the opening, he told me he photographs each model separately, then combines them later.

At least one of his models was startled to appear in the same painting as a person with whom they鈥檙e currently feuding, Weiss said. He had not been aware of the feud when he put them together, but such real-world social dynamics are also not something he thinks much about when composing his scenes. These are not slice-of-life moments showing artist friends goofing around together, like those picnic and boating scenes the Impressionists loved to paint. Some viewers might mistake them for that 鈥� or place them in the category of art world society portraits, along the lines of Alice Neel or Alex Katz 鈥� which is an easy mistake to make, especially if you鈥檙e part of the Santa Fe art scene and recognize some of the people in the paintings. But these are highly theatrical social fictions.

His amalgamated group portraits of unrelated people in contrasting poses recall the dances Merce Cunningham choreographed using chance operations. Cunningham鈥檚 dancers share the same stage, but not the same reality. They move at different speeds and velocities, rarely synchronizing and never cohering into a harmonious, unified whole. The same could be said for the figures Weiss paints.

But what do these disjointed assemblages of characters mean? The title of Weiss鈥� show offers a clue, but it鈥檚 a long one that takes some parsing, so buckle in: 鈥淲e Don鈥檛 Know That We Know Where We Are, We Don鈥檛 Know That We Know Where We鈥檙e Going.鈥� If you read it quickly, you might just get a general feeling of being lost or disoriented. That鈥檚 part of it, but there鈥檚 more. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know that we know where we are鈥� means something different than 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know where we are,鈥� or even 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know if we know where we are.鈥� What does it mean to not know that you know something?

At a press conference in 2002, President George W. Bush鈥檚 secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, memorably proffered his thoughts on human knowledge, which he divided into three types: 鈥渒nown knowns,鈥� 鈥渒nown unknowns鈥� and 鈥渦nknown unknowns.鈥� The 鈥渒nown knowns鈥� are the things we know to be true: the facts. The 鈥渒nown unknowns鈥� are variables and uncertainties that are known to exist, but that we can鈥檛 predict. The 鈥渦nknown unknowns,鈥� meanwhile, are the possibilities we haven鈥檛 even considered. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek, writing about Rumsfeld鈥檚 three epistemological categories, added a fourth 鈥� 鈥渦nknown knowns鈥� 鈥� which he defined as 鈥渄isavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about.鈥�

Weiss鈥� phrase, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know that we know,鈥� might be related to Zizek鈥檚 鈥渦nknown knowns鈥� 鈥� things one pretends not to know about. Are the figures in Weiss鈥� paintings duplicitous tricksters, then? The fact that they all seem to be doing their own thing, not responding to each other, might reflect narcissistic tendencies or extreme individualism. They might know perfectly well what they鈥檙e doing and where they鈥檙e going, but they feign ignorance. They鈥檙e up to no good. That鈥檚 one interpretation.

On the other hand, there are many things we know how to do that we can鈥檛 necessarily explain verbally. I always use a GPS to drive until I become familiar with a particular route, at which point I drive entirely by visual cues and muscle memory. I know how to get from point A to point B, but if you ask me for directions, I鈥檓 useless. I might not even know the name of the road I鈥檓 on or how to locate myself on a map. So, do I really know where I am? Do I really know where I鈥檓 going?

I might say, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know that I know where I am鈥� and 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know that I know where I鈥檓 going.鈥� I don鈥檛 consciously know, but my body still senses when to turn, and I鈥檓 able to get to the destination.

Many athletes operate by muscle memory, and there have been famous cases of great baseball hitters and golfers who fell into slumps due to overthinking. When they just got out there and swung, they were golden. But the moment they started thinking about how and why they were moving in a particular way, their game fell apart.

Like a road trip or a baseball game, life itself is a journey through known and unknown variables. How much control do we have over our lives? How much of a role does chance play? If I say of my life, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know that I know where I鈥檓 going,鈥� does that mean I鈥檓 living on autopilot? Something is propelling me forward, but am I just along for the ride?

鈥淵ou may find yourself in another part of the world / And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,鈥� David Byrne sang in the Talking Heads song 鈥淥nce in a Lifetime.鈥� 鈥溾�� And you may ask yourself, 鈥榃ell, how did I get here?鈥欌��

We鈥檝e all had times, probably, when we鈥檝e looked around at our lives and realized how different our present circumstances are from our pasts. Sometimes the contrast between who we are now and who we used to be is jarring. I used to be a termite inspector. The painter Agnes Martin once worked at a hamburger stand. The art critic Jerry Saltz was a truck driver. We don鈥檛 always know what lives our friends lived before we met them, but most people have lived multiple lives. And we carry those past selves with us, as memories.

There is a dreamlike or hallucinatory aspect to the works in 鈥淲e Don鈥檛 Know That We Know Where We Are, We Don't Know That We Know Where We鈥檙e Going,鈥� which comes partly from the incongruous poses, and partly from the anti-naturalistic, jewel-toned backgrounds. Weiss also gives some of his figures translucent limbs that trail behind them like the ghostlike visual trails people experience under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. I don鈥檛 think the paintings are meant to reflect literal drug trips, but Weiss uses those effects to destabilize our visual field and create a sense of physical and mental uncertainty. The figures seem caught between one state and another 鈥� one reality and another. Their movements carry sense memories of who they once were, and they seem disconnected from their present surroundings and from one another. They move as if in a dream.

The title of the show echoes that of Paul Gauguin鈥檚 famous painting, 鈥淲here Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?,鈥� which compresses the journey of life, from childhood to old age, into a single scene. Weiss鈥� paintings are equally philosophical, but whereas Gauguin viewed life as a line, Weiss views it as something nonlinear, utterly unpredictable and perhaps not even fully knowable.

What I like most about the work is that it suggests various narrative and conceptual possibilities without settling anything conclusively. We remain suspended between overlapping timelines, themes and ideas.

Perhaps Weiss is thinking about the tension between performativity and authenticity in the age of social media. Perhaps the contrasting gestures reflect social or cultural misunderstandings 鈥� or deliberate deception. Or maybe, as I suggested, these figures who 鈥渄on鈥檛 know that they know鈥� reflect a fundamental uncertainty at the heart of the human experience. In the end, do any of us really know what we鈥檙e doing here?

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the 近距离内射合集. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .