A Photographer's Newsletter
The Subject is Truth
At the most recent march against retaining a king for president, I happily ran into a buddy who spends plenty of time elsewhere but often at home in Falmouth. The man’s name is Jon Goldman and he has a lot of renaissance in him: being a musician, an artist, a MIT grad, that sort of guy.
His recent art project is, and has been for quite a while, founded by the presence of TRUTH. Or perhaps the lack of it. Not only the word itself, mind you, but also the essence of it, the weight of it, and the importance of it. Since our country’s 2016 election, truth has been in short supply indeed.
I.F. Stone, the brilliant muckraking journalist mentioned fondly in these pages, was often quoted thusly: “All governments lie and nothing they say should be believed.” Please note that I did not specify which of our government’s leaders is the most guilty of the most falsity, I merely remind readers that a dwindling supply of truth is extant. Could the presence of Donald J Trump be the reason that so much mendacity has arisen? Check it out. Go to the source as I did, but I can spare you the trip.
Look up “False or misleading statements by Donald Trump.” on Wikipedia, and the first thing you’ll see is this:
“This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably.” and goes on for many pages. You may want to check that comment for yourselves, so please go for it.
About three full pages into the compleat essay on Trump’s Career, surrounded as it is by uncounted explanations and graphs of numbers, there is this nugget by Carole McGranahan: "Donald Trump is different". He is the most "accomplished and effective liar" to have ever participated in American politics; moreover, his lying has reshaped public discourse so that "the frequency, degree, and impact of lying in politics are now unprecedented."
My introduction to the viewing of Jon Goldman’s work may be wordy, but it’s only a minute fraction of the reference dictionary I saw. I feel that his TRUTH art project was based on the fact one of the most important words in our language was tragically losing its meaning. Perhaps I am wrong, so here is Jon’s own intro:
“The Truth Project is my current creative project. I’m playfully exploring language used to describe the word "truth" in humorous, cultural and dialectic ways. The works range in size from monumental (forty-eight foot long perforated aluminum version for waterways and highways), to tiny—one fiftieth of a human hair (that’s 2 microns wide).” Here are some big ones:
To quite small:
Measuring TRUTH (its not easy):
For a complete group of the manifold visual efforts to repeat and restore TRUTH in important, memorable ways, see Jon Goldman’s site, here:
GOLDMANARTS.COM
It’s clear there are many who yearn for a more truthful American leadership. On the Falmouth Green, during the “No Kings” protest, I saw a woman, right in the middle, who worded it quite differently, but almost as brilliantly as Jon did:
Truth prevails (hopefully, eventually with this scammer)
Nice one, Rowland! Truth matters!