Timeline photos

Cyanosis I: Cover illustration by John Gullak

Timeline photos

Cyanosis II: Cover photo by Nina Glaser

Cyanosis I & II

In the 1990s, the GOP began gutting the National Endowment for the Arts. I began a project to produce an exceptionally strange magazine called Cyanosis. This medical term that means ‘turning blue’ is used to describe the hue of the tissues of the body when the oxygen in the bloodstream has been used up.

I felt that the assault in the arts was the beginning of a far more vast and insidious agenda, and my fears were not only well-founded, they were prophetic. The Arts are and remain a crucial asset in the social bloodstream, and by attacking the NEA, I saw the GOP going for a strangulation move, that would begin there, but extend everywhere… especially into public television, education, the environment itself, health care and social infrastructure in general.

Art and education are the analogs of oxygen for our social minds and intelligences… and when you begin attacking them, well, I think the cyanotic state of our modern situation speaks to the prophetic sense of my now historical concerns.

In terms of the magazine, I wanted to create a visually striking vehicle that would present extremely provocative art, images, literature and interviews.

{ My associate editor for the second issue, the brilliant, fierce, hilarious and incisive Daniel Davidson… whose partly mechanical heart could always be heard ticking when he was nearby… later suffocated himself.

He died of Cyanosis. I think he was sending a signal. In fact, I know he was. I am part of that signal, and Dan, if you are listening… we are still transmitting. Believe it. }

I Cover Illustration by John Gullak

2 Cover Photo by Nina Glaser

(in case anyone is interested, #2 is available for $9.95 + postage. Feel free to leave a comment and we can arrange ‘a transaction’)