"DESIRE: speaking portrait of Robert Kelly" (2011) (16 min. 3 sec.)

Edited by George Quasha from two hour-long separate conversations with Kelly, one between RK and GQ, the other between RK and Alana Siegel. Recorded in Barrytown, New York, January 25th, 2009.

It was created for, and shown in, "The Logic of the World: The Poetics of Robert Kelly: Celebrating His 75th Birthday & His 50 Years Teaching at Bard College" at Anthology Film Archives in New York, sponsored by The Brooklyn Rail, on May 7th, 2011, curated by Kimberly Lyons, presented by Jonas Mekas, and hosted by Phong Bui.

This work belongs to a series of speaking portraits that include "Alana (a speaking portrait)" (2008) (12 min. 6 sec.) and "unsaid (a speaking portrait of Victoria Vesna)" (2010) (9 min. 42 sec.).

Other work related to the larger speaking-portraits project includes “art is,” “poetry is,” “music is,” and similar works, focused inquiries on particular topics– artists saying what art is, poets saying what poetry is, etc. Speaking portraits like this one, in contrast, discover their subject matter in the process of intense dialogue.See quasha.com.