{"id":3679,"date":"2013-01-09T18:13:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T18:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=3679"},"modified":"2013-01-09T18:13:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T18:13:27","slug":"portraiture-in-the-twenty-first-century-by-sacha-siskonen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/01\/09\/portraiture-in-the-twenty-first-century-by-sacha-siskonen\/","title":{"rendered":"Portraiture in the Twenty-First Century by Sacha Siskonen"},"content":{"rendered":"

They drove in from the suburbs against rush hour traffic, making good time with the windows rolled down, the radio on, humming along. They took the train from the outskirts into the center as the sun set behind them. They walked eleven blocks from their offices and high-rise apartments to converge in the dimming light. The buildings clicked on around them. First one lighted window, then six, then thirty-six, then twelve hundred or so. In new shoes and old sports coats, they circled the block, overpaid for parking. They slowed themselves down or sped up. They didn\u2019t want to arrive early or late.
\n     The collection of portraits hung on the gallery\u2019s white white walls. For months the artist had been inviting them to the show: her mother, her coworkers, her father, her cousins, her aunt, her ex-boyfriends, her hairstylist, her third grade teacher, her stepmother, her plumber, her dog, her grandmother\u2019s neighbor, her landlord, her former babysitter, all of her friends, her mentor, her pharmacist, her favorite bartender, her sister, her boss, the lady from her laundromat.
\n     Some of the portraits she had done from memory, some from snapshots, some she had people sit for, and for some she needed no referent. They took different forms. Multimedia. A painting, a sculpture, an art object, all titled with a first name: Maureen, Alan, Keith, Shondra, Elise, Lauren, Kate, Philip, June, Ida, Mark, Mike, Mick, Ellen, Reginald, Olive, Lou, Fenton, Mackenzie, Daniel, Dan, Danny, Don, Li, Sue, Will, Alyssa, Chris, Ping, Betty, Jim, Rachel, Rachael, Emily, Paul, Emily, Cheryl, Nan, Clinton, Kyle, Tarik, Selena, Sariah, Jessica, Jessica, Jessica.
\n     They shuffled into the gallery, invitations in hand, shined shoes clicking on the cement floor. They held their breath. They could not wait.
\n     \u201cWhere am I?\u201d
\n     \u201cWhich is me?\u201d they whispered to husbands, wives, friends, strangers.
\n     \u201cOne of these is me.\u201d
\n     On a white block stand, a spoon under a spotlight. Gilt. Gleaming. Shapely. \u201cI\u2019m a spoon?\u201d she said. \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d
\n     \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing,\u201d her husband said.
\n     \u201cIs it?\u201d
\n     Next to them, a guy wearing his only suit said, \u201cLook.\u201d On the wall, stuck with Scotch tape, were sixteen Polaroids of him asleep. Curled up fetal, drooling, naked, the covers kicked off in a dream. \u201cThis is not cool.\u201d
\n     Across the room, a man saw his portrait\u2014a red neon sign that read, \u201cNebulous\u201d\u2014and laughed, and couldn\u2019t stop. \u201cI get it,\u201d he said to no one in particular. The people nearest him took one step away.
\n     The artist surveyed the room. In one corner, an eight-second video of her sister saying, \u201cTurn that off\u201d played in a loop. Someone stormed out, but she didn\u2019t see who. It was her hairdresser. Furious. Her next dye job would be brassy.
\n     Three critics circled the gallery, scribbling words on notepads: \u201criveting,\u201d \u201ccontrived,\u201d \u201ccallous,\u201d \u201cnonpareil.\u201d
\n     \u201cSomeone just bought me, Harold,\u201d the spoon said.
\n     \u201cWell, that\u2019s a compliment, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Harold said.
\n     \u201cNo. What will they do with me? Display me in their china cabinet? Hang me in their kitchen? What if they use me?\u201d
\n     \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019re much too expensive to be used, dear. They\u2019ll just look at you. And show you to their friends. They\u2019ll probably have you insured. Maybe loan you out to a museum?\u201d
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t find this funny. That\u2019s a portrait of me. I don\u2019t think strangers should own a portrait of me.\u201d
\n     The artist\u2019s stepmother saw her portrait hung on the wall and began to cry. First quietly into her sleeve and then loudly. Her husband, the artist\u2019s father, put his arm around her and said, \u201cI\u2019m sure it doesn\u2019t mean what you think.\u201d
\n     Collectors, people with money and space on their walls, munched hors d\u2019oeuvres, sipped wine and speculated. Should they take home the portrait done in pale yellow Post-It notes, or the one in crushed Coke cans? \u201cDoes this look like me?\u201d someone asked.
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s supposed to,\u201d one of the collectors said.
\n     \u201cBut it\u2019s a portrait.\u201d
\n     \u201cYes, I think that\u2019s the point.\u201d
\n     On a stand in the center of the gallery was a sculpture labeled, \u201cSelf-Portrait.\u201d A perfect plaster cast of the artist\u2019s left forearm, life line, heart line, fate line, etched into the palm, fingernails polished, blue veins snaking across the wrist, freckles dotting the fingers, wisps of light hair on the back of the arm. This was the part of herself she knew most. Perhaps the only part of herself she could see.
\n     The portraits hung staring on the walls. Her family, her friends, her acquaintances\u2014still and silenced. Across the gallery people whispered, \u201cI don\u2019t get it.\u201d
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t like it.\u201d
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d
\n     
\n     
\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013-
\nSacha Siskonen<\/strong> is currently dropping out of graduate school to pursue her dream of attending graduate school. Her fiction can be found in Alice Blue<\/em>, Word Riot<\/em>, Qwerty<\/em>, and The Mississippi Review<\/em> online (now Blip Magazine<\/em>). Her poetry chapbook, Turbulence<\/em>, is forthcoming from dancing girl press. Her weblog, The Saskatchewan Review, is neither a review, nor based in Canada, but can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They drove in from the suburbs against rush hour traffic, making good time with the windows rolled down, the radio on, humming along. They took the train from the outskirts into the center as the sun set behind them. They walked eleven blocks from their offices and high-rise apartments to converge in the dimming light. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-fiction","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}