#jarrett earnest

[garadinervi]

Jesse Murry, Aphorisms, (letterpress printing on handmade sheets of paper in handmade paper portfolio), Designed and letterpress printed by Rory Sparks, Platform, New York, NY, 2024, Edition of 25 [© Jesse Murry Memorial Trust / Jesse Murry Foundation]

«Aphorisms is the last poem that Jesse Murry wrote, during the final days of his life in 1993. This handset edition—designed and letterpress printed by Rory Sparks and including the marks and lines from Murry's original draft—consists of 11 pages of the poem, a portrait of the artist, and a colophon, all within a portfolio constructed from handmade, debossed paper. 100% of proceeds will benefit the Jesse Murry Foundation. Murry first wrote the poem by hand in the hospital while unable to speak, asking his partner George to recite it back to him, and for nearly 30 years, nobody else knew of its existence. In 2021, the handwritten pages of the poem were discovered by writer and curator Jarrett Earnest while doing research for an exhibition of Murry's late oil paintings, Rising, at David Zwirner New York. The edition was commissioned and produced by Stephanie Snyder, curator of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College. With special thanks to Lisa Yuskavage for her advisory role on this project and her lifelong support of Jesse Murry’s legacy.»

Plus: Jesse Murry: Aphorisms, Video directed by Lisa Yuskavage, 2021

[virtualmemoriespodcast]

Episode 567 - Jarrett Earnest

For the last guest-episode of 2023, art critic Jarrett Earnest joins me to celebrate his beautiful new book, VALID UNTIL SUNSET (Matte Editions), which brings together his Polaroids and a second-person narrative to create a bewitching trip through memory, art, grief, friendship, and more. We talk about how the sudden death of his father paralyzed and then catalyzed him, the importance of making art before fully recovering from a bad experience, how the artist's job is to be a question mark, and how a Nan Goldin exhibition started him on taking pictures of the people and places that mattered to him. We get into his friendships with Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Schjeldahl, and Genesis' imprecation to do/make/be the Most Fabulous Imaginable Version, the importance of road trips and pilgrimages, what he learned from interviewing a series of art critics, the freedom & addictiveness of writing in the second person, why we need to make an argument about why any art matters at all today, and why he loves writing about artists he knows. Plus, we discuss the value of public-facing life in NYC, how it felt to perform selections from Valid Until Sunset, how he thinks of writing in terms of shape, the importance of having a really good analyst and really dumb personal trainer, why you don't need to be part of Barbenheimer, and a lot more. Follow Jarrett on Instagram and subscribe to his Substack • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

Check out the new episode of The Virtual Memories Show

[onetwofeb]

Peter Schjeldahl looking at Joan Mitchell’s "Hemlock" (1956) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 2019. Photo credit: Jarrett Earnest.

[prefer-not-to]

Dave Hickey interviewed by Jarrett Earnest, SFAQ, 2015

The difference between fine and decorative art is that you can break down decorative art for the parts—you can take off the pearls and diamonds and sell them.

My rules: Think of the last line first, hook the first, and “keep your promises”—that is a lot of my rewriting. If it sounds just pretty good then I need to go back and play the dominant seventh up there somewhere so the cadence has some sense of fulfillment. You’re writing backwards sort of, unless you hit the right word on the first try. Sometimes, though, the easiest things to write about are “difficult art”—conceptual art especially, because conceptual art is not intellectual art, and you can just lay it out in words.

The biggest problem when I started writing criticism was transitions. “How does it get from here to there?” Gradually I read enough to realize that you don’t use them. No transitions. What you do is what I call a “jump shift.” In an art essay, I will start off with some sort of conversational anecdote and it will amount to about three hundred words, then you jump shift. An essay I was working on once started off with a little narrative about being in Julian Schnabel’s studio while they were tearing out the window to move out a 30-foot painting. Julian is directing everyone with his hands in the air and one of the working guys turns and says, “I bet Julian was an asshole in high school.” If you build that up and give it the time to create a little mise-en-scène, then you can just put a dot at the end and start again cold: “Julian Schnabel was born in Brooklyn, New York in April, 1951.” Then you go into that if you have that first hook nailed. My trick is to write paragraphs—don’t worry about where they go or if they go. After I have paragraphs I put them in order: here’s the narrative, here’s the hook, here’s the lede, here’s the jump shift—it’s a little train that goes along and you find the place to hook in another two paragraphs, then it’s the end. That means you are developing these little groups of leitmotifs. If you try to write it rationally, it will sound stupid because it’s not rational. It’s a set of waves. What I spend a lot of time on is just keeping it close to the ground, so we can go through this, we can go through Julian’s background, we can go through the rise of neo-expressionism and get to the place I was ultimately going: Julian’s career as a movie director, for which he was rehearsing when he was moving the painting through the window. That was the sort of loose hook that was there—and I’ll write it up one of these days, maybe—so I’m sorta going there and I’m sorta starting here. But mostly, if you write good paragraphs, you don’t need a transition, you can jump.

I agree with Henry James who said the paragraph is the basic unit of writing—James’s paragraphs are a bit more portly than mine are, since I believe in the nested theory that eight bars of music is: statement, restatement, release, return; and twenty-four bars of music is: statement, restatement, release, return. So you’re almost trying to write the essay in each paragraph starting from a different point of view. But the thing is to write good paragraphs, and what you want is a good stop at the end of the paragraph, because if it stops well you can go anywhere from there. And you want a good lede, like in any story. The trick in a paragraph, I think, is that they are like sonnets in the sense that they have pivots, called “voltas” in a sonnet. There is a place in every paragraph where it turns. You start out here and you end up there in a slightly more skewed position. Three-fifths into a paragraph it better start turning—something better start happening. Same thing applies to the essay—three-fifths into the essay it better start turning. What imposing a rational structure on things (and Arthur Danto was the main offender in this infelicity) is that the marching prose just soaks into the soil. You have to go back to the visible as much as possible. My preference—which most critics ignore—is to spend a lot of time actually describing the work. If you can describe the work then you have said what you have to say about the painting. You can presume that you are moving right along. So we have the scene in Julian’s studio, then you have lots of background—what an asshole Julian was in high school in Houston, where I first met him. I mean he was not really mean; he was just who he is, he has a sense of drama…

So: here is your lede, here is your backstory—such that you need to fill in historical things—here is your description of the work, and if you can’t get out from those three points you’re in trouble! It sounds a lot more mechanical than it is. A lot of it is prosody and instinct. Sometimes I don’t do it at all, but in general I try to start off with that thing I suggested to Peter Schjeldahl—”the lady standing next to me looking at the Kiefer blew her nose.”

Jarrett Earnest: When it comes to that set-up, the conversational lede, the biographical stuff, and then the description, how do you connect the biographical to the descriptive?

It will connect because you say it does. The narrative pushes it up. You’re the boss. That is what you discover, that is why you don’t worry about transitions. If it’s not there, the words will put it there and you won’t have to do all the shit Arthur Danto does. I think it’s fairly important to make your preferences clear; I’ve written essays where I’ve said, “In my universe I don’t like this art. But in this universe I’m going to tell you how it might be good.”

…there is a tendency to do that—you want to make everything gorgeous, but if it’s a good hook just let it emanate. If you’re being clear and grammatical don’t worry about boring—people can read clear and grammatical very rapidly. If you want to make it hard, make it beautiful and difficult. Except criticism is a craft and not an art.

Also I have to tell you something else: one of the ways out of swanning narcissism, if worse comes to worse, is to quote yourself. You don’t say, “I thought . . .” you say, “I have a friend who thinks . . .” Then you have some calm distance—you don’t have to say who that person was. You really have a lot of options when you write, but that presumes that you have something in your mouth that you are chewing on, unlike that asshole at Princeton—he’s not chewing on anything. What I’m saying is: a good essay on art is not always a good argument, it is a good story with implications—that is what you learn writing celebrity journalism. You are writing a story with available materials, available light. I learned how to do that—an evening in a room with Jeff Beck isn’t as dazzling as you might think, but the interview was about Stratocasters. That is what Jeff Beck knows and loves so it was very sweet.

...

I taught Northrop Frye, who is good because he classifies narratives in terms of the protagonist’s control over the environment, so you start in the heroic mode where the protagonist has total control and you end up in the ironic mode where the protagonist turns into a beetle. It really helps kids sort out what they’re doing and where they are placing things. It also helps abstract painters to see that there is a kind of class system in abstract painting. You can do Mary Heilmann right off the beach, or you can do Philip Taaffe right out of the beauty shop. Once you see these categories it gives you more clarity.

[endlessandrea]

Moten: This will be something of an impressionistic jumping around kind of answer: I remember watching a documentary on Elvin Jones, the drummer for John Coltrane’s great quartet. It was later in his career, and at one point he’s playing the drums and starts talking basically about his experience of synesthesia. He hits the ride cymbal and says, See, for me that’s yellow. In the course of writing In The Break I was reading a lot of stuff on synesthesia—there was a way that what I wanted to do was link-up synesthetic experience with this other kind of cognitive experience I was fascinated with—what Wittgenstein calls “seeing aspects,” when you see something and then it turns into something else. It’s essentially just the “duck/rabbit” phenomenon. Of course, Wittgenstein would say that it doesn’t turn into something else—it’s the same thing, you just see a different aspect of it. So, I was thinking, What if there was something within the general sensual field that operated in a similar way to this seeing aspects? Instead of saying, First it was a “duck” and then it was a “rabbit,”you would say, First it was a “duck” and then it was a sound. The reason why I’m thinking of Elvin Jones in relation to Beauford Delaney, is that I’m thinking about a very particular abstract painting by Delaney which is a kind of study in yellow, and it’s a very thick impastoed yellow—

Rail: He’s the Patron Saint of Yellow!

Moten: For me, Beauford Delaney is always connected with the sound of Elvin Jones’s ride cymbal. And if I were to think about describing that effect in terms of a particular word, not only at the level of meaning but also phonically, it would be “shimmer.”There is shimmer in Beauford Delaney’s painting in the way that there is shimmer in Elvin Jones’s playing. And for me that shimmer is totally bound up with what Samuel R. Delany calls “the motion of light in water.” When I hear that phrase, “motion of light in water,” it’s connected to a sound. And also, because it’s a motion, it becomes a question about movement. In a way, I feel like what I’m doing is a kind of reverse engineering, so to speak, of what immediately shows up as a synesthetic experience. You know, it requires a linking together of all these folks.

There are some people who have written about sound and visual art and it usually manifests itself along two lines: as a representation of “sound” or representations of occasions in which sound is being made in some conscious way. Or they’ll talk about it as a certain terminological overlap, with regard to questions about tone, etc. But what I was really trying to say is that when we experience something visually, the other senses are not turned off. And similarly, when we experience something aurally, the other senses are not turned off. That our experience is part of a general synesthetic—but I didn’t want to call it synesthetic—I think I used the term holosensual field. One way to think about it is as an earlier version of what I now call “blur”—and that does come back to the piece I wrote on Chris Offili, in a way totally influenced by Glenn Ligon's writing about Chris Offili.

[dromik]

Courtesy Jarrett Earnest.

[transmitternyc]

We enjoyed Jarrett Earnest interview with Jerry Saltz in The Brooklyn Rail.

(via Jerry Saltz with Jarrett Earnest | The Brooklyn Rail)

[supportblackart]

Jack Whitten (1939-2018) was an African-American painter and sculptor. Alabama born, Whitten was a pre-med student before heading to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to study art. He continued his studies in NYC at Cooper Union after watching Martin Luther King Jr speak in Montgomery, Alabama, completing a BFA in 1964. Dubbed the father of New Abstraction, Jack employed unique techniques and materials in his carvings and paintings. In an interview with Jarrett Earnest, Whitten describes the direct method, which used pieces of stone, marble, precious metal or glass (tesserae) placed in a way to govern and reflect light in his paintings. Prior to his death in 2018, he agreed to have 40 of his sculptures unveiled for the first time at the Baltimore Museum of Art, interspersed with 18 paintings. Jack split his time between Queens, NY and Crete, Greece. In his work are the layers of the Civil Rights movement, the Black experience and rebirth of self. Integrating spirituality and heavily influenced by mosaics throughout Europe, his work may seem unconventional at first glance and forces the viewer to take a step back to see the soul in what’s presented as well as in self. Some of his work can be viewed in the Brooklyn Museum as a part of the Soul of A Nation retrospective. #supportblackart #jackwhitten #blackartstory https://www.instagram.com/p/BtZi2LyhtDI/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3hnkp4f94poh

[a-ltrove]

 Jarrett Earnest

[artbookdap]

We are moved by Jarrett Earnest's deep consideration of the life and work of Dave Hickey, a writer who has made a profound impact on our thinking, and on our list, since 1993. So much of Hickey's history is reflected in our own story, from his seminal early writing for @karenmarta at @parkettart to the publication of his landmark essay collections 'The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty' (1993) and 'Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy' (1997) — both from Art Issues Press. We are also proud to distribute his 2013 collection, 'Pirates and Farmers' from @ridinghousebooks⁠ ⁠ "It is not just the power, mastery, and invention of Hickey’s writing that makes it so singular, but its view of the world. In Hickeyland, painters, singers, wrestlers, and magicians develop from a primordial woundedness—from a profound alienation from the world, which their art doesn’t necessarily heal but seeks to address. …⁠ ⁠ Similarly, and almost uniquely in contemporary criticism, Hickey’s writing returns to artists both their painful humanity and their extraordinary talents, inextricably pushing them apart from, and toward, their fellows. … Moving beyond the personal psychology or biography of an artist, the artwork extends an unlikely communion with other alienated people who have found that by making and thinking about something beautiful, they invoke a gentler, more exciting, and more livable society. …⁠ ⁠ For him, art is not defined by auction prices or tenured jobs, but by the feeling that it produces, bringing one into more meaningful connection with other people and the richness of being itself. In an art world that has expanded in transnational finance and professional glut, Hickey’s writing remains more relevant and radical than ever. Today the immensity of his achievement casts a shadow over the institutionalized spaces of art history and criticism, fluttering above them on iridescent wings made of words."⁠ ⁠ Read the full review via linkinbio⁠ ⁠ #davehickey #artissues #garykornblau #airguitar #invisibledragon #piratesandfarmers #artcriticism @jarrett227 @nybooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CewXdaSJ8vj/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[notesonfilm1]

The Young and the Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930-1955, edited by Jarrett Earnest, David Zwirner Books, 2020

The Young and the Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930-1955, edited by Jarrett Earnest, David Zwirner Books, 2020

[uartslibraries]

The Young and Evil: Queer Modernism in New York, 1930-1955

edited by Jarrett Earnest

N8217.H67 Y68 2019

[eustorebattery-blog]

Biden, Obama

Biden, Obama and the national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room to monitor the progress of the May 2011 mission to kill Osama bin Laden

Some reports suggest that Biden opposed proceeding with the May 2011 U.S. mission to kill Osama bin Laden,[22Sony VGP-BPS31 battery Sony SVF14AA1QM battery Sony VGP-BPS38 battery4][249] lest failure adversely affect Obama's reelection prospects.[250][251] He took the lead in notifying Congressional leaders of the successful outcome.[252] Sony VGP-BPS30A battery Sony VGP-BPS30 battery Sony VGP-BPS39 battery

 Reelection

Main article: Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign

In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election,[236] but with Obama's popularity on the decline, White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton.[253] Sony SVE14AG15M battery Sony SVE14AG18M battery Sony VAIO PCG-81111M battery Sony VAIO PCG-81111V batteryThe notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama,[253] and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.[254]

  Biden and Obama, July 2012

Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving".[2Sony SVE14AE15M battery Sony SVE14AE12M battery Sony VAIO PCG-71112M battery55] Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended.[185][256][257][258] Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statementSony SVE14AJ15M battery Sony SVE14AA11M battery Sony VAIO PCG-61412V battery,[256] and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks.[259] Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out,[25Sony SVE151D11M battery Sony SVE171G11M battery Sony VAIO PCG-61412M battery7][260] while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart.[256] The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with message discipline,[185] as Time wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness."[224] Sony SVS131B11M battery Sony SVS131C1EM battery Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in 2016, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.[253] Sony SVS131C24M battery Sony PCG-41215M battery Sony VAIO PCG-51212M battery

 The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012.[261] Sony VAIO PCG-41112M battery [224] An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track.[261][262] Sony PCG-41216M battery Sony VAIO PCG-41111V battery [263] The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion."[262] Sony VAIO PCG-51112M battery Sony VAIO PCG-41111M batteryTime magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."[261] Sony VAIO PCG-51211M battery Sony VAIO PCG-51212M battery

 Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September.[264] Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative Paul Ryan, in the vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket.[265] Sony VAIO PCG-81212M battery Sony PCG-31112M battery Sony PCG-31112V battery [266] On November 6, Obama and Biden won reelection[267] over Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 332 of 538 Electoral College votes and 51% of the popular vote.[268] Sony VAIO PCG-81212V battery Sony PCG-31111V battery

 In December 2012, Obama named Biden to head the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.[26Sony VAIO PCG-51111M battery Sony VAIO PCG-7192M battery Sony VAIO PCG-7194M battery Sony PCG-31111M battery9] Later that month, during the final days before the United States fell off the "fiscal cliff", Biden's relationship with McConnell again proved important as the two negotiated a deal that led to the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 being passed at the start of 2013.[270][271] It made many of the Bush tax cuts permanent but raised rates on upper income levels.[271] Sony VAIO PCG-7195M battery Sony VAIO PCG-7196M battery Sony PCG-41414M battery

 Second term (2013–2017)

Biden was inaugurated to a second term on January 20, 2013, at a small ceremony at Number One Observatory Circle, his official residence, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor presiding (a public ceremony took place on January 21). Sony PCG-4121DM battery Sony PCG-41218M battery [272] He continued to be in the forefront as, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Obama administration put forth executive orders and proposed new gun control measures[8Sony PCG-4121EM battery Sony PCG-4121GM battery Sony PCG-41217M battery9] (they failed to pass).[273] Biden played little part in discussions that led to the October 2013 passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, which resolved the federal government shutdown of 2013 and the debt-ceiling crisis of 2013. This was because Senate majority leader Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders cut him out of any direct talks with Congress, feeling Biden had given too much away during previous Sony PCG-41211M battery Sony PCG-41212M battery Sony PCG-41215M battery Sony PCG-41216M batterynegotiations.[274][275][276]

 Biden's Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized again in 2013. The act led to related developments, such as the White House Council on Women and Girls, begun in the first term, as well as the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, begun in January 2014 with Biden and Valerie Jarrett as co-chairs.[277] Sony PCG-41213M battery Sony PCG-41214M battery [278] Biden discussed federal guidelines on sexual assault on university campuses while giving a speech at the University of New Hampshire. He said, "No means no, if you're drunk or you're sober. No means no if you're in bed, in a dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes at first and you changed your mind. No means no."[279][280] Sony PCG-71911M battery [281] In line with his efforts supporting victims of sex crimes, Biden made a cameo appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as Vice President, in support of clearing the backlog of rape kits.[282][283]

 Biden favored arming Syria's rebel fighters.[284] As Iraq fell apart during 2014, renewed attention was paid to the Biden-Gelb Iraqi federalization plan of 2006, with some observers suggesting Biden had been right all along.[285][286] Biden himself said the U.S. would follow ISIL "to the gates of hell".[2Sony PCG-31113M battery Sony PCG-71811M battery87] On December 8, 2015, Biden spoke in Ukraine's parliament in Kyiv[288] in one of his many visits to set U.S. aid and policy stance on Ukraine.[289][290] Biden had close relationships with several Latin American leaders and was assigned a focus on the region during the administration; he visited the region 16 times during his vice presidency, the most of any president or vice president.[29Sony PCG-31113V battery Sony PCG-31114M battery Sony PCG-71312M battery Sony PCG-71313M battery1]

  Biden with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, March 9, 2016

In 2015, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell invited Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress without notifying the Obama administration. Sony PCG-31114V battery Sony PCG-31211T battery Sony PCG-71311M battery This defiance of protocol led Biden and more than 50 congressional Democrats to skip Netanyahu's speech.[292] In August 2016, Biden visited Serbia, where he met with Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić and expressed his condolences for civilian victims of the bombing campaign during the Kosovo War.[29Sony PCG-31311M battery Sony PCG-31311T battery Sony PCG-41111M battery Sony PCG-41111V battery Sony PCG-41112M battery Sony PCG-51111M battery Sony PCG-71213M battery3] In Kosovo, he attended a ceremony renaming a highway after his son Beau, in honor of Beau's service to Kosovo in training its judges and prosecutors.[294][295][296]

 Biden never cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president with this distinction.[297] Sony PCG-51111T battery Sony PCG-51112M battery Sony PCG-71212M battery

  Biden with Vice President-elect Mike Pence on November 10, 2016

Role in the 2016 presidential campaign

During his second term, Biden was often said to be preparing for a possible bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.[298] With his family, many friends, and donors encouraging him in mid-2015 to enter the race, Sony PCG-51211M battery Sony PCG-51212M battery Sony PCG-71211M batteryand with Hillary Clinton's favorability ratings in decline at that time, Biden was reported to again be seriously considering the prospect and a "Draft Biden 2016" PAC was established.[298][299][300Sony PCG-51212V battery Sony PCG-71111M battery]

 As of September 11, 2015, Biden was still uncertain about running. He cited his son's recent death as a large drain on his emotional energy, and said, "nobody has a right ... to seek that office unless they're willing to give it 110% of who they are."[301] On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to run for president in 2016.[3Sony PCG-61111M battery Sony PCG-61211M battery Sony PCG-61714M battery02][303][304] In January 2016, Biden affirmed that it was the right decision, but admitted to regretting not running for president "every day".[305]

 After Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on June 9, 2016, Biden endorsed her later that day.[306] Throughout the 2016 election, Biden strongly criticized Clinton's opponent, Donald Trump, in often colorful terms.[307][308] Sony PCG-61412M battery Sony PCG-61713M battery

 Subsequent activities (2017–2021)

 Biden with his two predecessors, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, at the latter's inauguration on January 20, 2017

After leaving the vice presidency, Biden became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, while continuing to lead efforts to find treatments for cancer.[309] In 2017 he wrote a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, and went on a book tour.[3Sony PCG-61412V battery Sony PCG-61511M battery Sony PCG-61611M battery10] Biden earned $15.6 million in 2017–2018.[311] In 2018, he gave a eulogy for Senator John McCain, praising McCain's embrace of American ideals and bipartisan friendships.[312] Sony PCG-81111M battery Sony PCG-81111V battery

Biden remained in the public eye, endorsing candidates while continuing to comment on politics, climate change, and the presidency of Donald Trump.[313][314][315] He also continued to speak out in favor of LGBT rights, Sony PCG-81111T battery Sony PCG-81212M battery Sony SVE171A11M battery Sony SVE171B11M battery Sony SVE171C11M battery Sony SVE171E11M battery

 continuing advocacy on an issue he had become more closely associated with during his vice presidency.[316][317] In 2019, Biden criticized Brunei for its intention to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality, calling it "appalling and immoral" and saying, "There is no excuse—not culture, not tradition—for this kind of hate and inhumanity."[318] By 2019, Biden and his wife reported that their assets had increased to between $2.2 mSony PCG-81112M battery Sony PCG-81311T battery Sony SVE151G17M batteryillion and $8 million from speaking engagements and a contract to write a set of books.[319]

 2020 presidential campaign

Main article: Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign

See also: 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and 2020 United States presidential election

Speculation and announcement

 Biden at his presidential kickoff rally in Philadelphia, May 2019

Between 2016 and 2019, media outlets often mentioned Biden as a likely candidate for president in 2020.[320] When asked if he would run, he gave varied and ambivalent answers, saying "never say never".[32Sony PCG-81311M battery Sony PCG-81312M battery Sony SVE151G13M battery1] At one point he suggested he did not see a scenario where he would run again,[322][323] but a few days later, he said, "I'll run if I can walk."[324] A political action committee known as Time for Biden was formed in January 2018, seeking Biden's entry into the race.[325] Sony PCG-81313M battery

 Biden said he would decide whether to run by January 2019,[326] but made no announcement at that time. Friends said he was "very close to saying yes" but was concerned about the effect another presidential run could have on his family and reputation, as well as fundraising struggles and perceptions about his age and relative centrism.[327] He finally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019,[32Sony pcg-81411m battery Sony pcg-81412m battery 8] saying he was prompted to run by his "sense of duty", offense at the Trump presidency, what he felt was a lack of foreign policy experience among other Democratic hopefuls, and his desire to foster "bridge-building progressivism" in the party.[327] Sony pcg-91111m battery Sony PCG-91112M battery

 Campaign

In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden.[329] Despite the allegations, as of September 2019, no evidence has been produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens.[330][3Sony pcg-91211m battery Sony SVE151G11M battery31][332] The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden's chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal[333][334] and Trump's impeachment by the House of Representatives.

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Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1 billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. Sony SVD112A1SM battery Sony SVE151D11M batteryIn 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1 billion in aid was part of this official policy.[335][336][337][338] Sony SVD132A1SM battery Sony SVD1122C5E battery Sony SVE151C11M battery

 Throughout 2019, Biden stayed generally ahead of other Democrats in national polls.[339][340] Despite this, he finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and eight days later, fifth in the New Hampshire primary.[341][342] Sony SVF13NA1UM battery Sony SVP132A2CM battery He performed better in the Nevada caucuses, reaching the 15% required for delegates, but still was behind Bernie Sanders by 21.6 percentage points.[343] Making strong appeals to black voters on the campaign trail and in the South Carolina debate, Biden won the South Carolina primary by more than 28 points.[34Sony SVF14AA1QM battery Sony SVP132A1CM battery4] After the withdrawals and subsequent endorsements of candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, he made large gains in the March 3 Super Tuesday primary elections. Biden won 18 of the next 26 contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Sony SVF14NA1EM battery Sony SVF14NA1UM battery Sony SVF154B1EM batteryMinnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, putting him in the lead overall.[345] Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg soon dropped out, and Biden expanded his lead with victories over Sanders in four states (Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, and Missouri) on March 10.[346] Sony SVF15AA1QM battery Sony SVF15NA1GM battery Sony SVF15NA1YM battery

 When Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president.[347] On April 13, Sanders endorsed Biden in a live-streamed discussion from their homes.[348] Former President Barack Obama endorsed Biden the next day.[349] In March 2020, Sony SVF15NB1GM battery Sony SVF153B1YM batteryBiden committed to choosing a woman as his running mate.[350] In June, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to secure the party's presidential nomination.[351] On August 11, he announced U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, Sony SVF153A1YM batterymaking her the first African American and first South Asian American vice-presidential nominee on a major-party ticket.[352]

 On August 18, 2020, Biden was officially nominated at the 2020 Democratic National Convention as the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 2020 election.[353][354][355]

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Allegations of inappropriate physical contact

Biden has been accused several times of inappropriate non-sexual contact, such as embracing, kissing, and other forms of physical contact.[356][357] He has described himself as a "tactile politician" and admitted this behavior has caused trouble for him in the past.[358] Sony SVF15NB1YM battery Sony SVF152A29M battery By 2015, a series of swearings-in and other events at which Biden had placed his hands on people and talked closely to them attracted attention in the press and on social media.[359][360][361] Various people defended Biden, including a senator who issued a statement,[362] Sony SVS13AA11M battery Sony SVT151B11M batteryas well as Stephanie Carter, a woman whose photograph with Biden had gone viral, who described the photo as "misleadingly extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends".[36Sony SVS131A11M battery Sony SVS131A12M battery Sony SVT151A11M battery3] In February 2016, Biden gave a speech about sexual assault awareness at the 88th Academy Awards, before introducing Lady Gaga.[364]

 In March 2019, former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores alleged that Biden had touched her without her consent at a 2014 campaign rally in Las Vegas. In an op-ed, Flores wrote that Biden had walked up behind her, Sony SVS131B11M battery Sony SVS131B12M battery Sony SVS131C1EM battery put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair, and kissed the back of her head, adding that the way he touched her was "an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners—and I felt powerless to do anything about it."[365] Biden's spokesman said Biden did not recall the behavior described.[3Sony SVS131C1DM battery Sony SVS131C1DM battery Sony SVT131B11M battery66] Two days later, Amy Lappos, a former congressional aide to Jim Himes, said Biden touched her in a non-sexual but inappropriate way by holding her head to rub noses with her at a political fundraiser in Greenwich in 2009.[367Sony SVS131C24M battery Sony SVT131A11W battery] The next day, two more women came forward with allegations of unwanted touching claiming that he touched a woman's leg during a meeting, and that he placed his hand on a woman's back during a photo.[368][369]

 In early April 2019, three women told The Washington Post Biden had touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable.[37Sony SVS131E1DM battery Sony SVT131A11M battery0] Also in April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said she had felt uncomfortable on several occasions when Biden touched her on her shoulder and neck during her employment in his Senate office in 1993.[371] Sony SVS131E1EM battery Sony SVS151A11M battery Sony SVT111A11W battery

 In March 2020, Reade accused him of a 1993 sexual assault.[372] Biden and his campaign vehemently denied the allegation.[373][374] The New York Times investigated and "found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden".[372] Sony SVS151A12M battery Sony SVT111A11M battery

 Biden apologized for not understanding how people would react to his actions, but said his intentions were honorable and that he would be more "mindful of people's personal space". He went on to say he was not sorry for anything he had ever done, which led critics to accuse him of sending a mixed message.[375Sony VGP-BPS27 battery Sony VGP-BPS30 battery Sony VGP-BPS30A battery Sony VGP-BPL18 battery ] Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian said it was "frustrating to see conservatives... weaponize the accusations against Biden", but that it was "also frustrating to see so many liberals turn a blind eye".[37Sony VGP-BPS31 battery Sony VGP-BPS18 battery6]

 Presidential transition

Further information: Presidential transition of Joe Biden

Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020. He defeated the incumbent, Donald Trump, becoming the first candidate to defeat a sitting president since Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush in 1992. Sony VGP-BPS33 battery Sony VGP-BPS34 battery Sony PCG-61511M battery Sony PCG-91112M batteryOn November 23, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy formally recognized Biden as the apparent winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.[377] Donald Trump refused to concede against Biden, propping up Qanon and other conspiracy theories relating to the legitimacy of the mail-in voting.[378][37Sony VGP-BPS35 battery Sony VGP-BPS36 battery Sony VGP-BPS37 battery Sony VGP-BPS42 battery9] After Trump exhausted his legal options, he engaged in the big lie, furthering conspiracy theories and endorsed his supporters and theorists linked to Qanon to find ways to overturn the 2020 election.[380][38Sony VGP-BPS38 battery Sony VGP-BPS39 battery 1]

 On January 6, 2021, during Congress's electoral vote count, Trump told supporters gathered in front of the White House to march to the Capitol, saying, "We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved."[38Sony VGP-BPS40 battery Sony VGP-BPS41 battery2] Soon after, they stormed the Capitol. During the insurrection at the Capitol, Biden addressed the nation, calling the events "an unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times. Sony SVE151D11M battery Sony SVE151C11M battery" He specifically called on Trump to "go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege", adding "It must end now."[383][384Sony SVE171G11M battery Sony SVE171A11M battery] After the Capitol was cleared, Congress resumed its joint session and officially certified the election results with Pence declaring Biden and Harris the winners.[385]

 In December 2020, Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Christiana Hospital in Delaware, publicly taking the vaccine on live television to build trust in the vaccine and to encourage Americans to get inoculated.[386][387] He returned for his second dose in January 2021.[388Sony SVE171A11M battery Sony SVE171E13M battery]

 President (2021–present)

Main article: Presidency of Joe Biden

For a chronological guide to this subject, see Timeline of the Joe Biden presidency.

 Biden takes the oath of office administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. at the Capitol, January 20, 2021 Sony SVE151C11M battery Sony SVE151G11M battery Sony SVE151E11M battery

Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021.[389][390][nb 3] At 78, he is the oldest person to have assumed the office.[389] He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy)[39Sony SVE151G13M battery Sony SVE151G17M battery Sony SVE171E11M battery5] and the first president whose home state is Delaware.[396] He is the second non-incumbent vice president (after Richard Nixon in 1968) to be elected president.[397]

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In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. By his third day, orders had included rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, directing the government to rejoin the World Health Organization, Sony SVS13AA11M battery Sony SVS131B12M battery Sony PCG-31114M battery face mask requirements on federal property and measures to combat hunger in the United States.[398][399][400][401] He issued an executive order that revoked permits for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,[402][403] Sony SVS151A11M battery Sony SVS151A12M battery Sony PCG-31113M batterya pipeline heavily criticized by environmental and Native American activists and groups, resulting in Canadian energy company TC Energy's eliminating 1,000 construction jobs.[404] In his first two weeks in office, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office.[405]

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On February 4, 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States was ending its support for the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen. In his first visit to the State Department as president, Biden said "this war has to end" and that the conflict has created a "humanitarian and strategic catastrophe".[406] Sony PCG-41211M battery

 Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Joe Biden

Biden is considered a moderate Democrat[407] and a centrist.[408][409] More recently, he has been characterized as shifting to the left.[410][411][4Sony PCG-41213M battery Sony PCG-41218M battery Sony PCG-31111M battery Sony PCG-31112M battery12] He has a lifetime liberal 72% score from the Americans for Democratic Action through 2004, while the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime conservative rating of 13% through 2008.[413]

 Biden supported the fiscal stimulus in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009;[414][415] the Obama administration's proposed increase in infrastructure spending;[415] subsidies for mass transit, including Amtrak, bus, and subway;[416] Sony PCG-41218M battery and the reduced military spending in the Obama administration's fiscal year 2014 budget.[417][418] He has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire.[419][420] He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)[421] Sony PCG-41414M battery Sony PCG-41217M battery and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.[422] Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).[423][424] He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts.[423] Biden's plan is to create a public option for health insurance, with the aim of expanding health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans.[425] Sony PCG-41214M battery Sony PCG-4121GM battery   Sony PCG-41216M battery

 Biden has supported reproductive rights,[426] same-sex marriage,[427] the Roe v. Wade decision, and since 2019 has supported repealing the Hyde Amendment (a rule barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion).[428][4 Sony PCG-41212M battery Sony PCG-41215M battery29] He opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and supports governmental funding to find new energy sources.[430Sony PCG-41311M battery

Sony PCG-81412M battery] As a senator, he forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of a Police Officer's Bill of Rights measure that police unions supported but police chiefs opposed. As vice president, he served as a White House liaison to police.[431][432]

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Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Sense of the Senate resolution calling on the United States to take part in the United Nations climate negotiations and the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate.[433Sony PCG-41314M battery Sony PCG-41315M battery Sony PCG-4R2M battery

Sony PCG-81313M battery] He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050.[434] His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building.[4Sony PCG-4R2M battery

Sony PCG-81312M battery35] Biden wants to pressure China and other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, by carbon tariffs if necessary.[436][437] Biden has voiced concerns about China's "unfair Sony PCG-4U2M battery Sony PCG-6Z4M battery

Sony PCG-81311M batteryeconomic practices" and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region.[438]

 Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements.[439] He opposed direct U.S. intervention in Libya;[440][441] voted against U.S. participation in the Gulf War;[442] Sony PCG-6112M battery Sony PCG-6121M battery

Sony PCG-81213M battery voted in favor of the Iraq War;[443] and supports a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[444] Biden has pledged to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and to reevaluate the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia.[445] He has called North Korea a "paper tiger".[4Sony PCG-6122M battery

Sony PCG-81212M battery46] As vice president, Biden supported Obama's Cuban thaw.[447] He has said that, as president, he would restore U.S. membership in key United Nations bodies, such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization,[44Sony PCG-6123M battery

Sony PCG-81113M battery8] and possibly the Human Rights Council.[449] Biden also pledged to sanction and commercially restrict Chinese government officials and entities who carry out repression.[450] Biden supports extending the New START arms control treaty with Russia to limit the number of nuclear weapons deployed by both sides.[451][452] Sony PCG-6124M battery

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 Distinctions

Main article: List of honors and awards received by Joe Biden

See also: List of things named after Joe Biden

 President Obama presents Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, January 12, 2017

Biden has received honorary degrees from the University of Scranton (1976),[453] Saint Joseph's University (LL.D 1981),[454] Widener University School of Law (2000),[72] Sony PCG-81112M battery Sony VGP-BPS33A battery Emerson College (2003),[455] Delaware State University (2003),[456] his alma mater the University of Delaware (LL.D 2004),[457] Suffolk University Law School (2005),[458] his other alma mater Syracuse University (LL.D 2009),[ Sony PCG-81113M battery Sony PCG-81212M battery 459] Wake Forest University (LL.D 2009),[460] the University of Pennsylvania (LL.D 2013),[461] Miami Dade College (2014),[462] University of South Carolina (DPA 2014),[463] Trinity College, Dublin (LL.D 2016),[464] Colby College (LL.D 2017),[465] and Morgan State University (DPS 2017).[466] Sony PCG-81213M battery Sony PCG-81311M battery Sony VGP-BPS33 battery

[artbookdap]

Congrats @soberscove !! #Repost・・・Jarrett Earnest’s beautiful essay on Jesse Murry is now up at @nyrbooks. It’s an intimate portrait of the artist, propelled by the story of his friendship with painter Lisa Yuskavage, whom he met while they were both in the graduate program at Yale. Speaking to Yuskavage about new work she was making, Murry made her run out and find Wallace Stevens’s poem “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour”: “The poem captured what Murry believed art was and what he aspired to achieve in his own painting. Art need not merely represent the external world; it could also reflect the inner world of the mind, where we commune with a higher power. For Murry, this required art to move beyond the historical or geographical boundaries of a singular “self.” It was sacred work that took on the wholeness of human experience, and it was far removed from the modernist dead ends they’d been offered at art school.” Link in bio (you can sign up for a free account to read it and it’ll be in the Dec 2 print issue). #jessemurry #lisayuskavage @jarrettearnest @artbook #paintingisasupremefiction #rising @davidzwirner https://www.instagram.com/p/CWQyiXppDMe/?utm_medium=tumblr