Artist as Alchemist, N.A.M.E. Gallery Chicago catalogue 1986

The folding catalogue of the Artist as Alchemist show in N.A.M.E., 1986, Lanny Silverman curator, with Mark Staff Brandl,  Chuck Walker, Jane Calvin, Mary Stoppard, Andre Ferrella, Michele Feder-Nadoff, David Richards, Polly Kiesel, Imriede Hogan, Z'ev and Michael Meyers.

Ayn Rand and Nietzsche: Fascism, Selfishness and Hypocrisy

Ayn Rand is Nietzsche for the simpleminded, their pseudo-philosophical justification of selfishness. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche himself is de rigueur for all quasi-intellectuals and nerds with illusions of superiority. They see themselves as the Übermensch and all those who pushed them down in grade school as the Untermensch. There is an inherent fascism in Nietzsche's divvying-up of humanity into such judgemental classifications, as well as in his allocation of morality only unto himself. Likewise, despotism appears in his followers in their inevitable assertions that only they have truly read him correctly --- regardless of who 'they' are: Nazis, Poststructuralists, Nihilists, whatever. Furthermore, this array of repulsive traits is what charms his adherents, although they deny it, making them the strange attractors of fields of hypocrisy. --- Mark Staff Brandl, 2014