A few hundred metres away, from my investment conference, stands the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I have 45 minutes to spare. Several artists eloquently - although also esoterically make many of the points that the Responsible Investor conference are grappling with. I also end up writing what turns out to be a poem.
This work (above) by Dawoud Bey highlights America’s conflicts on race (The Birmingham Project, 2012)
This work (above) by Amy Franceschini asks questions on land preservation and food sustainability - San Francisco City Seed Library (2007).
This work (above) by Tiffany Chung, one giant great flood 2050 (2012) is a climate change provocation.
I caught some Donald Judd (below).
Oh, to spend a life thinking about the design of a chair. Furniture. Let others steward the planet. A time for birds, fish and insects. Let humans die out, maybe it is best for this era to end, as all eras must, but let me be allowed to think one thing intensely - like the chair.
I spied Louise Bourgouise’s spiders (below).
Ah! We meet again. Another continent. Again. Our 4th or 5th encounter. You were most massive in that old power turbine hall. Your size is diminished. Your creepiness is not.
Louise. Louise. I’ve heard tell of your salons. I’ve caught your insiduous stockings and your knittings and stichings. But you have left us.
Another world. Another time. Would I sit at your feet and sculpt and sculpt. I would not even know why. Let others think of investment, I’ll only think on being human.
Calder (below). You again. Your work should rather be free and big and open. Imposing on the landscapes. I once thought of you and Rauschenberg, then completely chopped up a chair, pulled out its stuffing, assembled on a wall, and hund the stuffing on a string.
It went on a wall in a Corbusier building - all drafty but beautiful - and many university students came by and told me it was fine art. And good art. I like to think they were right. But what did we know?
Still your small work has balance and charm. Sitting there in tense stillness. Not quite forgotten by its bigger brothers.
Oh Uyghurs! Soon we will disappear you. Like many many peoples before you. I am so inadequately sorry. I am glad Caroline Drake has immortalised you in art. Although from here, I know not where it does. I once travelled and took photos. But the conflicting complexities of viewer - person - atrocity - I could never reconcile. As Susan Meisalas still does not (photographs of the photographs not allowed).
Oh Young Japanese Man! (below) How did humanity find a way to train you to be in suicide attacks and then how did we end your war with an act as unimaginable as to split atoms and blow up Hiroshima.
Voices unheard. Sitting in this beautiful musuem. For a short time, I hear you.
The current Arts blog, cross-over, the current Investing blog. Cross fertilise, some thoughts on autism. Discover what the last arts/business mingle was all about (sign up for invites to the next event in the list below).
My Op-Ed in the Financial Times (My Financial Times opinion article) about asking long-term questions surrounding sustainability and ESG.
Current highlights:
Narrative scarcity, representation and being a Crazy Rich Asian.
Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith
How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.
A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.
Some popular posts: the commencement address; by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher), Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. Charlie Munger on always inverting; Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.
Buy my play, Yellow Gentlemen, (amazon link) - all profits to charity