“Michael Jordan, Save the World”
This past April, during a short stay in Philadelphia, I stopped in at the Fleisher Art Memorial. It was meant to be a brief visit, more of quick turn than a real tour of the nation’s oldest tuition-free art school. But then I got to the second gallery of the exhibition and I stood dumbfounded. Bombs were falling. And there was Michael Jordan—there were Michael Jordans coming to the rescue.
Norman Paris’s installation consisted of multiple Michael Jordans leaping and reaching and stretching to intercept “Fat Man” bombs dropping from the ceiling. To have heroes. To be saved. Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about those half-size basketball stars jumping and soaring and the exuberant hope they offered. And I’ve been thinking about the despairing fact of these two numbers: There were 24 bombs. But only 23 Michael Jordans.
Hurricane Disaster Relief: American Red Cross
Photos by James G. Mundie