Kuar en cia
I didn’t know Russna then, hadn’t heard the stories she tells about and around her paintings, hadn’t yet understood how someone manages the burden of representation, juggling what to reveal and what to conceal, forging a possible path forward for the rest of us racialized diasporic femmes, sharp as fucking tacks-especially, those of us who think carefully, skeptically, and often, about identity-based politics in art. Ironing, Bored made me think of my grandmother ironing bibi’s fotă, the velvety red embroidery flattening under the weight and steam, a mostly-ash cigarette hanging from her mouth-dangerously drooping over the entire operation. My girlfriend thought it was a very ‘pretty’ painting-and her passing attraction speaks to the seduction of Kaur’s style, but all good work deserves a closer encounter, a longer breath, a deeper look. It made sense to me and yet alluded to so many unanswerable things. It was mimesis of absolutely nothing and an image of absolutely everything. That initial encounter was with a painting constructed from multiple abutting surfaces, strips of canvas, sawdust, and saturated acrylic paint. They are midway between the sun and the moon, 2020. Russna Kaur, Suddenly her lips sharpened-it was splendid installation shot. While the art world reckons with representation, Kaur keeps on going-making work with the practiced pragmatism of the shrugging lady emoji. Though her work is situated in the realm of the abstract, she manages the concomitant baggage with intention and grace. Kaur’s work moved me, held me, and invited me in because it walked a tightrope across the complex political and visual histories of abstraction and representation. Her work was a welcome reprieve from an onslaught of poorly executed new media works and frenetic installations filled with broken things, clumsily glued back together. When I first saw Kaur’s work, I was an exhausted third year BFA student, equal parts overwhelmed and in awe, walking through offerings at The Show-Emily Carr University’s graduating exhibition. It wasn’t until much later that I understood why I felt that way. Sized at 12 feet x 9 feet, occupying a quiet corner on the top floor painting gallery at Emily Carr University, it was hard to leave, difficult to walk away. The first time I saw one of Russna Kaur’s monumental paintings, Ironing, Bored, I couldn’t stop staring.
Suddenly her lips sharpened-it was splendid I don’t doubt that CIA was responsible.Russna Kaur, Suddenly her lips sharpened-it was splendid installation shot, the sky seems to be the only one to Notice, 2020. I suspect the reason the harassment stopped was because of the complaints I made to Sanders and the FBI. I did however note that by 2010 I stopped sending FOIA requests and no longer requested the help of elected officials. I stopped seeing strangers following me, and my mail stopped being stolen. The harassment stopped in late 2010, except my phone remains tapped. It was similar to the other encounters, without the hostility demonstrated by the blond man. By May 2011, I had only one encounter with a stranger in a parking lot. My new lawyer thought it was unusual for the FBI not to open a case file on a complaint, but I never heard from FBI. I never saw the blond man again and as the weeks went by, I noticed I wasn’t being followed. I asked the FBI to help me stop the harassment I was being subjected to by CIA and asked them to check with Senator Sander’s office if they still didn’t believe me.
I told the woman on the phone about being followed for months by a man I was able to identify as an undercover federal agent and I gave her his name. I recall telling the FBI that I realized it all sounded crazy and that the behavior of the CIA was indeed crazy, but that what I was reporting to FBI was accurate. After the incidents with the blond man, and my growing anger at the behavior of CIA, who I was certain was behind the harassment, I phoned the FBI office in Albany, New York and explained the situation I had been involved in with CIA. I had never found FBI participation in MKULTRA. I doubted that they were but I wanted to make sure.
By 2011, Sander’s office was fully informed about the CIA in my life and I was told that the office would send a Congressional Liaison officer to complain to CIA about what Sander’s staff termed “stalking.” In 2009, I also filed a FOIA request with the FBI in an attempt to learn if FBI was following me. “The next day, I phoned Senator Sander’s office and reported the activities of this man.