Art’s Theory 5

chapter 5

String Theory

What is happening?  As the mob thins out and the gallery prepares to close, Sam descends the staircase with N. O. Probity to his left.  In front of them, a muscled-up bodyguard provides a clear path.  Sam can feel the eyes of the angry mob staring back at a comically mismatched trio.  The cheap champagne on top of that joint of sativa creates the illusion that Sam is looking out of a tunnel into an alien world.  Around the corner in the middle of the block, Joe’s Style Shop points the way.  Sam stops at the weathered green wooden door, dropping his keys before unlocking the dead bolt and shoving the door open with frustration.  The entryway is grungy and smells of street person urine.  Mr. Probity barks at his driver to stay put, mechanically turns and, with great effort, slowly begins the steep climb to the third floor.  Step by agonizing step Sam ascends the creaky staircase with a comic book villain.  Jesus Christ, a banana slug could move faster, Sam thinks to himself.  After what seems like an eternity, they arrive at Sam’s studio door.  Turning one last lock, Sam turns on the lights to reveal his laboratory of alchemy.  With windows overlooking a busy city street, this large room makes an ideal workspace.  Sam is damn lucky to have it.

          Mr. Probity completes the vertical death march by flopping himself into a tattered stuffed chair, while taking care to avoid touching anything with his bare hands.  Straining to catch his breath, he finally looks up and examines the various paintings in the room, each one a mysterious rebus.   

          To the right sat an explosion of fire over an Iraqi oil field, with a river of burning blood flowing into a subterranean crevice and ending at the feet of a dead soldier.  On the left hung a winged-skull floating over a chessboard populated by a single white pawn and an empty ceramic bowl.  It looked like the Hell’s Angels’ logo inside an architectural digest setting with an El Greco sky above.  Lying on the floor, the dark liquid eyes of man’s best friend looked up with expectation.  Using noodles of extruded acrylic paint, Sam had created a profound illusion of dog hair and it just looked too damn cool.

          But Noel seemed most transfixed by the canvas hanging on the brightly illuminated working wall straight ahead - the image a collage of explosive light, iridescent water, chessboard flooring and flying babies.  A Greek Ionic column lays in ruin below those cherubs.  Composed of an ambiguous narrative and kaleidoscopic color, the voyeuristic painting has captivated Noel’s attention.  He got out of the thrift store chair and shuffled over to the wall to inspect the details.  Without aid of drugs, this corporate titan has become visually lost among the colored skeins of paint.  The squiggles of brightly colored acrylic paint explode with energy and light to form the cherub’s material structure.  The transformation of the physical paint into a transcendent illusion of an alternate universe created a hypnotic effect upon Mr. Probity.  Without looking away, he asked, “What do you call this one?”

          “String Theory,” Sam answered with a wry smirk on his face.  “I worked on it today.  I’m not sure it’s done, yet.”

          “What does the rook symbolize?”

          “According to Magritte, people who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image,” Sam instructed.  “And besides, maybe it’s a castle.”

          “How do you get that effect?  I feel like I’m being pulled into the painting.”  Noel’s nose nearly touched the canvas.

          Sam assumed his professorial alter-ego and explained, “As Frank Stella wrote in his book – Working Space: The aim of painting is to create space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, a space in which the subjects can live.”

          Snapping out of his painting induced trance, Noel looked back at Sam and asked, “So you believe art is just trying to copy what exists in the actual world?”

          “Mimesis,” Sam quips.  “That is what Plato thought.”

          “Do you agree?”  Noel asks, silently impressed by Sam’s Latin.

          “No, and I also don’t believe Art should be used by governments and religions to teach ethics and morals.”

          “Didacticism,” Noel offers the Latin term as evidence of his Ivy League schooling.

          “Yes, it makes art pedantic.  It limits Art to put it at the service of church and state,” Sam adds.

          “So, Art for Art’s sake?”

          “That was the mantra of Modern Art, a reductive aesthetic that simplified painting down to a white rectangle.  It was all a very scientific search for something called significant form.”

          Noel turned towards the bay windows overlooking the street and obviously saw the chessboard shoved into the far corner of the studio. 

          With a twinkle in his eye Sam offered, “Would you like to try your luck?”          Noel took a long measure of the scruffy unemployed painter and decided there is no way this pitiful example of humanity could actually win.  “I can play one quick game,” Noel accepted while settling back into the worn, but comfy, chair.  Sam pulled the chess table and another chair over in front of Noel.  While sitting down, he blows the dust off the marble board and wooden pieces, causing Noel to lean back and cover his nose with a handkerchief to avoid inhaling the airborne filth.  The germ-a-phobic billionaire pulled on a pair of driving gloves and reached over to rotate the black and white checkered slab.  With the white pieces in front of him Noel demanded, “I move first.”

          “Whatever.”  Sam agreed, but couldn’t resist proclaiming, “I can win with either color.”  But to himself Sam often questioned the idea of coming first and the linear progression of time people experience in their day to day lives. 

          N.O. Probity looked directly into Sam’s eyes for the third time tonight.  Although he had observed Sam playing via the security camera outside the coffee house, Noel was unsure just how good this local loser might be.  Rich and powerful men like to win; their whole lifestyle is built around winning.  He was determined to crush Sam like a bug and then buy that painting for ten cents on the dollar.

          Mr. Probity will push his king pawn forward two squares and Sam will instantly answer with his queen bishop pawn.  The Sicilian defense is an asymmetrical opening that creates unbalanced positions with poor odds of a draw - someone was going to lose.  Noel would have preferred a traditional Italian opening, but he will press on with his usual plans.  Each move by the beady-eyed billionaire will trigger an instant memorized reply from Sam.  If they were using a clock, Noel would already be several minutes behind on time.  But the time Sam will be most interested in concerned the principles of piece development - having more pieces placed on critical squares creates extra tempo and the ability to coordinate an attack quickly.

          After a dozen moves by each side, the position on the board had already become complicated.  Sam had set up a pin with a possible fork to follow.  The annoying tactics frustrated Noel’s efforts to improve the placement of his major pieces.  After much consternation, Noel moved his queen to a more active square and, for the first time, Sam stopped to study the position carefully.  He had not considered this option and the more he looked at the board, the worse it seemed.  Shit!  He was going to drop a bishop and still have problems.  He had gotten sloppy and missed this whole line of play. 

          Anger turned to renewed focus as Sam started to calculate several extreme continuations.  According to chess theory, Noel’s move was too aggressive considering the under development of the white pieces.  Sam must find a move that doesn’t totally suck.

          Sam pinched the hopeless chunk of wood that was the doomed bishop and moved it one diagonal square, changing which piece Noel could use to capture it.  Noel had been puzzled by several of Sam’s moves, but this one just seemed stupid.  It didn’t save the piece so white happily accepted the gift with his queen and triumphantly slammed the black bishop down on the side of the table.  Too bad Noel didn’t look up at his opponent during this intense mental combat.  He could have witnessed that blurry Sam right across the chessboard instead of back at home on the surveillance tape.  For just a second, Sam’s entire body was in soft focus.  The event was so short Noel might have blamed his elderly eyesight.  Ironically, this was the main reason for his interest in Sam and he missed the moment by being so focused on winning a chess game.

          Now Sam makes a move he can truly identify with, the desperado – lashing out in blind aggression.  He was about to unleash a can of whoop-ass on this wealthy old man.  By blowing up the position on the chessboard, Sam knew he would get some counter play for his better developed pieces.  He sacrificed another bishop (the desperado) to capture the rook pawn in front of the castled king.  Check!  Without really thinking it through, Noel recaptured with his king and slowly put the poisoned bounty on the table.  With his superior development, Sam was mounting an all-out assault on the vulnerable enemy king.  Sam checked the displaced king with a knight fork that captured the white queen.  Noel would be able to avoid immediate checkmate, but surviving Sam’s tactical wizardry without a queen seemed doubtful.

          The billionaire bitterly captured the queen-eating knight and Sam instantly responded with another aggressive attack.  Noel became agitated by the complicated task of defending his king and kicked the table while crossing his legs.  Most of the chessmen fell over and several rolled around the checkered board before falling onto the multi-colored paint-dripped floor.

          “I can reconstruct the position,” Sam will explain while bending over to grab the rook rolling towards his shoe.

          “Don’t bother, we’ll just call it a draw,” Noel might growl while taking a tubular glass vial from inside his suit jacket and spilling a drop of viscous liquid onto a strangely reptilian tongue.

          “What?  No way!  I was clearly winning.”

          “Three minor pieces are worth more than a queen, so technically I was slightly ahead.  Besides, it’s getting late and I must be going.”

          Sam will sit dumbfounded and watch the cheating bastard walk back over to the String Theory painting.  Time, once again, seems to be wrong – out of sync somehow.

          “How much for this one?” the Devil might ask.

          “Four thousand dollars.” a disoriented rube will venture.

          Noel will surely laugh out loud and say something like, “I’m not interested in gallery prices.  Listen, you look like you could really use the money.  Try again.”

          Sam will begin to sweat.  He’d be a moron to pass up a sale.  He still owed Zia money for rent.  “I can let you have it wholesale - $2,000.”

          “How about one thousand cash, right now?” the evil man will barter.

          “That’s not enough,” Sam will plead and whine, “It took me three years to make it.”

          Noel will take a platinum money clip out of his tailored pants and unfold ten crisp hundred-dollar bills.  He will hold them up to Sam’s nose and chirp, “Cash and carry, with no taxes to pay.  I need to be off now, so this is your last chance to make a deal.”

          An out of time sync Sam stares at the C-notes nearly touching his nose and becomes extremely conflicted.  This was literally pocket change; Mr. N. O. Probity could afford to pay millions for a painting.  It just wasn’t fair. 

          Disoriented, Sam started to refuse the low-ball price and retain his archaic pride, but the words never came out of his mouth.  His shoulders just slumped down as he reached out and took Satan’s bargain.  Although raised in a Roman Catholic family, he no longer believed in such religious concepts.  But, then again, he wasn’t an Atheist either.  Sam understood that both believing and not believing took as their premise the ability to know something unknowable.

          “Smart move boy!”  Noel chortled and before the desperate artist could change his mind the muscled-up driver magically appeared and grabbed the large colorful canvas off the wall.  At times like this Sam got the sensation of being outside his own body helplessly watching something he could not control, as if in another dimension of time. In his present state of disequilibrium, Sam Bored had been no match for a global conglomerate of a man who just used him like a cheap slut - how appropriate for the old bordello that housed his studio.

π

          We must leave Sam now, not to go with the devil that cheated him but to return to Max’s gallery.  Something has changed.  Like Sam, We have discovered a new tactic.