November 20 -- Robbi Nester

Juxtaposition

After a photograph: Salvador Dali With Vermeer and Rhino (1955)

By Robbi Nestor

Art is about nothing if not context.

Shown here, the artist,

perched on the edge

of the keeper’s wheelbarrow,

ponders his canvas.

On either side of the animal’s den,

symmetrically posed,

Vermeer’s  Lacemaker

and the rhino, ears perked,

regarding the famous painting

like a tourist.

The real and the human-made—

the artwork somehow affixed

to the cave wall,

the cave itself, not a natural

formation of wind and weather,

but composed carefully

of concrete, easy to clean

and care for,

nothing of the veldt.

Whose eye is this

that makes the artist

part of his own composition,

stationed among  hollow blocks

meant to resemble boulders,

a further comment 

on the juxtaposition

of life and art?