MLK Day last week marked the Memorial Service for the late Larry Sultan at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Outstanding speakers, i.e. Jim Goldberg and SFMOMA's curator of Photography Sandra Phillips, as well as many colleagues of the California College of the Arts. Vivid words illuminated the life and work of an artist whose world we shall now only know through his fantastic photography. A communal bottle of Wild Turkey booze was passed to the mourners.
I graduated from the S.F. Art Institute in 1987 and Mr. Sultan was one of the most instrumental and influential photography teachers I witnessed.
Kelly, his beloved, wrote what he said shortly before he died. I will paraphrase it here. “I am happy that I have touched “CULTURE” ever so featherly.”
Here are my musings
About this great loss to the art world:
Ode to Sultan
Myself, a star
Of the expanding
Constellation in the
Sultan Orbit.
The eloquence of a mind
Reflects in luminous images.
Flirting with the edge to
Endure the inferno - life.
Capture the quality,
Absurdity.
A sweet and sour
Wicked sense of humor
Holding the Key to the Kingdom.
Above all
Anxiety;-
Provoking
Art
Conceptual,
Yet
So, so personal. Martina Konietzny M.F.A. 1/23/2010
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