Imposter Soup
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The Poem
Imposter Soup
The rat is painting Marilynon a Campbell’s soup can.Of course he is.This is how it works nowthe copy of the copyof the copy,each generationfaithful to the last,the originalso far upstreamthat no oneremembers the source,only the style,only the colors,only the feelingthat this is familiarin a waythat feels like culturebut might just bememory.
The rat is painting
Warhol would walk throughArt Basel Paris todayand look at the outfits.I believe this completely.He would say nothingabout the art.He would photographthe outfitsand the people wearing the outfitsand the people photographingthe people wearing the outfitsand he would understandthat thiswas the piece,that it was alwaysthe piece,that the factorynever closedit just movedto a fair in Pariswhere the soup canscost more.
Imitation is an industry.Some good.Some bad.Most lackingthe one thingthat made the originalworth imitatingwhich was the ideathat this had neverbeen done beforeand needed to be doneand the person who did itwas the first personto understandwhy.
You can copy the soup can.You cannot copythe momentsomeone looked at a soup canand sawthe whole of Americalooking back.
I suffer from impostor syndrome.Not worthy.Common, really.And yet here I ammaking the work,making the poem,making the pieceabout the ratpainting the canwith Marilyn on itwhich is alsoa piece about memaking a pieceabout the ratmaking a piece.
The whole thingis downstream.We are all downstream.The questionis not whether you stole ityou stole it,I stole it,Banksy stole it,Warhol stole itfrom Duchampwho stole itfrom the ideathat anythingcould be artif you said it waswith enoughconviction.
The question iswhat you did with itonce you had it.
Pop art is cool arton a sad wall.I said thisand I mean itas both celebrationand verdictthe colors are real,the fun is real,the nostalgia is real,the fact that peoplestill buy itis realand not nothing,and alsoI have seen enough of itto know the differencebetween the piecethat arrivedbecause it needed to existand the piecethat arrivedbecause the last piecesold.
The impostor syndromeis the wrong diagnosis.What you haveis not the syndromeof someonewho doesn’t belongit is the syndromeof someonewho is paying attention,who looks at the workand sees its influences,who knowswhere the rivercame from,who cannot pretendthe upstreamdoesn’t existthe waythe comfortable onespretend.
That’s not impostor.That’s honest.
The rat keeps painting.Marilyn keeps smilingfrom the soup can.Warhol keeps holding courtat the partythat never ended,just moved cities.
Marilyn keeps smiling
And somewherein the downstreamof all of it,a personwho calls himselfan impostoris making the workthat isentirelyhis ownthe pier,the pool,the desert at sixty-four,the whale tailsin the gold water,the womanbeneath the surfacemade of earth,the cannonball,the barrels,the fogthat doesn’t answer,the whole body of workthat came from everywhereand belongsto no one else.
That’s not impostor.
That’s the river
knowing where it came from
and going somewhere
new.