Romanian artists Lia and Dan Perjovschi (whose just-dismantled installation at the MoMA I was so impressed with this summer) are visiting the Nasher this week for the opening of their joint retrospective "States of Minds," and I was lucky enough to interview them for the Indy this week. Definitely one of my more exciting assignments. Here's the traditional taste:

Despite their aesthetic variation, on the level of politics the work of both Perjovschis always remains an outsider's stern critique of power. What has changed is their recognition of power's many insidious forms. "I will, all the time, be on the side of the weak one," Lia says. "Before the revolution, when I was thinking of the dictator [Nicolae Ceausescu], who was really stupid, I hated him. I wanted to kill him, and symbolically I think I killed him each day. But I learned something that's a little bit more complex: We cannot accuse only the guy on top. We all have a part."

"And also not the system in general, so nobody's guilty," Dan quickly interjects.

Lia goes on: "I don't believe that it's the time, in this moment, the time to be on a list or to make noise or yelling at people to wake up. [We need] to build, no matter how small, not only make scandal or destroy. It's too general—destruction is too general. If we don't want to be part of something, then somebody on top will take advantage of this.... On the whole planet, it is always the same story: We are part of something."

Don't miss the photos at the link.

I nearly took a job this summer working as the resident adviser and teaching assistant for the Duke in New York summer session; in the end it didn't work out for budgetary reasons, but I think it would have been fun. I only bring this up because Jaimee and I randomly bumped into the Duke in New York crew while we were walking through the Museum of Modern Art today, which means that whether I'd taken the job or not I would have been in that exact location at that exact time. More investigation is needed, but I assume it's fair to conclude that this incredibly minor coincidence holds true across all possible universes—no matter what, at 1:00 pm on June 16, 2007, that's where I am.

New York was fun, of course. The trouble with New York is that every time I visit I want to move there more, but every time Jaimee visits she wants to move there less. (And thus we are torn apart.) Today's highlight for me was surely the giant Dan Perjovschi installation in the central gallery of the MoMA, which through the magic of technology you can visit online. I'll try to put up some more images from the piece when I get back to Durham, but it's great fun.

After MoMA we also had time to visit the American Folk Art Museum, which has a couple of very cool pieces by Henry Darger, as well as some great political outsider art.

After that we hit Central Park for a free concert with some friends and a freak rainstorm that left us all soaked. When we got back to Jersey we met up with some of Jaimee's friends from high school for a meal at a quintessential Jersey diner that leaves me now questioning the wisdom of my decision to eat nothing but disgusting greasy food whenever I'm inside New Jersey.

So ends Bloomsday.