Male artists have benefited from having great wives /  by Mirena Rhee

Because I run my own studio, shop my own groceries and clean up after myself I realized how male artists have benefited from having great wives. Art is very process heavy. Interruptions really mess things up.

Time for food? He sits down on the table. Time for bed? The bed is made and the linen clean. Time to wake up? Breakfast is ready and clothes are pressed. Time to step in the studio? No worries because the house is in order and the groceries and bills are taken care of.

I was not only surprised by Greece's beauty but also by its great infrastructure and handling of crowds /  by Mirena Rhee

I've always been suspicious whenever Greece is bashed in the media as some backward country stealing European money. They're just very shrewd people and have been for several thousand years. The best public library in New York City was funded by a Greek. Thank you very much.

It's astonishing how well public transportation is organized given the massive hordes of tourists descending on the tiny Islands. If you haven't observed how these hordes are being swallowed and transported by the large ferries you haven't seen anything. They employ people in vests and whistles. Whenever the crowd makes a mistake in taking the wrong turn somebody always comes out in a vest and starts whistling and pointing in the right direction. The crowd obliges and keeps rolling their suitcases.

The little ants are being directed by the sugar cubes.

I've always been sad about how bad public transportation infrastructure is in the States. But then the US is enormous. I remember public transportation being awful in San Francisco and I drove everywhere although I should have been taking public transportation because it's a small city. I loved driving however at some point I started resenting it and realized it really isn't necessary. I think driving makes people lonely.

And the car culture sends people to the suburbs, in lonely unwalkable destinations that are not conducive to socialization. Socializing with random people is very important for the maintenance of the social fabric and trust. And fun you know, having fun is a lost art in America. Unless you buy a ticket to some place.

Ok so how did I end up here in my essay? Well I'm still processing my time in Greece. As an artist as a human being, their massive contributions to art. They invented world culture as we know it. Look around every city and there is Greek art everywhere, read any book and there are Plato's talking points everywhere. Public discourse, yeah this is what they invented.

I'm astonished how quickly the world descended into full on totalitarianism during covid /  by Mirena Rhee

I remember sitting in a Starbucks across from the Apple store on fifth avenue and they started taking the tables and chairs around me I'm like what the fuck is going on. And literally a day later screens in Chelsea started flashing the symptoms of an illness like some invisible orchestration. Every apocalyptic movie I've ever watched happened in front of my eyes and from walking on the curb because there was no space on the sidewalk I became the only one walking around in Manhattan.

Memory Replacement World Trade Center /  by Mirena Rhee

In this work I designed a self-contained primed canvas wearable and asked people from all walks of life and ages to paint, at the most iconic site in New York city - The World Trade Center 9/11 memorial site, a place of silent worship, remembrance, transcendence, reflection, astonishment, reverie. And now, painting.

Detail