On bizarre art... "If you don't know what it is, it's art" has never been truer...

[silversolitaire]

Sometimes my googling scares me... So, Beely was bored. No f-list updates, no new mails (other than spam and JB-ML rambling about how cute John Barrowman looks with hairgel). Always a bad combination. So I started snooping around random sites. As Tom always points out, I have the uncanny ability to dig up stuff that will upset me or gross me out.

Allow me to demonstrate. I was looking around and ended up finding this. If you know me, I have this weird phobia paired with fascination regarding giants / large statues. They freak me out, really freak me out, yet I can't stop looking at them. Now this guy, he calls himself a hyperrealistic artist and what he does is both fascinating, very skillful and oh so frightening! D: This gallery here is all in Russian, but it shows better pictures of the exhibits. If you want to read up on the guy, here's the wiki entry.

Needless to say, I find all the giants he made extremely scary. And oh God, what's with that mask thing??? The last image on the Washington Post gallery. Oh... My... God.

Weirdo art somehow brought me on the subject of this: Unpop Art! Now, I love Pop Art, so the concept of Unpop Art seems fascinating. And I have to say, a lot of pieces in the galleries are fascinating and interesting. Many others however are lame, borderlining disgusting, others clearly have crossed that line. I'd like to issue a clear warning that you shouldn't browse the galleries if you're easily upsettable by offensive images, also including pictures of real dead people. Yeah, some people are sick fucks.

Ignoring the pieces that obviously are of little artistic merit, I must say some I thought were pretty neat. Like this, a kitschy porcellain gun with Jesus on it. As a matter of fact, I found all pieces by Charles Krafft kinda interesting. Such as this bio grenade, or the onion pattern grenades, or the Forgiveness perfume bottle. Or this piece by Boyd Rice, Love. I'm so torn on the entire issue of using nazi and war imagery like that, yet it's fascinating.

Then, as a literature major this one amused me endlessly: (caution, artistic porn). "After the Staircase", of course alluding to "Nu Descendant un Escalier" (Nude Descending a Staircase) by Marcel Duchamp, the very painting said to have made William Carlos Williams, grand master of the Imagism, laugh and realize the ramnifications of impressionism at the famous Armory Show.

Interlude!

My favorite poem by W.C. William:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

Continue!

So, there actually are some really good pieces among that. Then of course there's some kind of freakish stuff too, like this one titled "Cairn Creek" by Beth Moore-Love. Again, warning, it's not really gross or explicit, but it shows a naked child in a somewhat pictoresque yet strangely grotesque surrounding. I don't really get this painting to be honest. Do you? I feel like it should tell me something, but I don't know what. Maybe it'd work better if it was larger. The same artist also has another painting later on which is... strange at best.

And then there's this stuff by Caleb Weintraub which I'm telling you right now you should steer absolutely clear of if you're queasy, even when it's only painted. I'm usually not queasy about stuff that's obviously not real. But this painting here called Inch by Inch scared the living daylights out of me. It's explicitly gory, despite the blood being pink, but the thing that really did me in is that insane, murderous expression on that child's face. I'm seriously scared now of going to work tomorrow! (asdgashkk just clicked the link again accidentally and the painting popped up in front of my eyes. trauma...). That guy is one sick fuck. He only paints stuff like that it seems! Children mutilating adults... what gives?? No, I don't get this at all. I do recognize the artist's talent though.

The site also features a bunch of puppets modelled after real life people with grotesquely shaped faces such as Brian Peppers. I thought that was extremely well done and really captured his looks. Wouldn't want that doll sitting around at my place, but it's definitely interesting.

Now, leaving the paths of the features artists, I moved on from there to the Readymades which actually wasn't all that bad. Really made you wonder what's going on in some people's heads though since most of these pieces weren't made to intentionally offend (some clearly were though). There, I revisited the oh so famous Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swastika. Nothing new to the internet pro, but the cool thing is that I found a link for the entire comic! Wow! Now that was enlightening. It's just so seriously on crack, I'm lost for words. If you've ever wondered about a girl's development from Über-Nazi to American Christian biblethumper, this is your answer! There are just so many parts... I could quote the whole damn thing! So, do check it out, it's hilarious.

My romp through the world of strange art was concluded with this site featuring vintage (and now probably illegal) porn pulp fiction that would make House weep with joy. Who doesn't want to read timeless classics such as "Dog-Raped Women" or "Beast-Raped Mom And Daughter"?

I hope you enjoyed this little tour. If you're traumatized now, here's a picture of a Carebear. (You know, that's actually funny. I said these very words to Tom earlier: "Okay stopping now. I'd google carebears but somehow I think I'd find sick shit too." Now that I did... Boy, I was so right...)

Comments

[glenraven.livejournal.com]

the gallery with the statues of the Giants and then also little people were really fascinating. I really liked that one of the lady in the bed just because of the detail to even the indention in the check from her fingers. That was pretty cool. Although I coulda done without the mother having just given birth with baby on her stomach. While from the head it was ok, the shot from the feet up I was like 'ok SO did not need to see that.' there is a reason why I don't even watch the baby shows on TLC.

Yeah and the unpop art stuff, I see where you are coming from. Some of it is interesting especially with political or religious message and all that. But some of it seemed more like sick and twisted fantasies or something like that. And yeah, I DID accidentally click on the one link of the kid murdering the parents... while eating lasagna for dinner. Needless to say din din is the fridge now.

Neat stuff though, you do find the most odd things though LOL.

[arthal.livejournal.com]

I've always quite liked this one by WCW:

"This Is Just To Say"

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

Yes, this would be the other one I like a lot! :3 I had to analyze that one for my intermediate exams. As a matter of fact those are the two that most people know of him *g*. That and The Great Figure.

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

Yeah some of the Unpop Art people clearly just want to offend. It's not art to take an offensive picture and slap a disrespectful message on it. That didn't impress me. But others I thought were really fascinating, when they mixed difficult political messages with seemingly totally unsuitable art imagery. If I had more art skills I'd do that too, I think!

And sorry about your dinner :/. I did try to warn though...

[kribban.livejournal.com]

You know, you should just write when you're bored. Seriously, you have no excuse for boredom. If you spent every single minute you are bored writing, you'd be even more prolific.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

i liked this post very much!
:)

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

Yay! Any particular insights? *g*

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

I know!!! But surfing brainlessly is so much easier than writing! But you're right... *guilty*

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

not intentionally. :)
it was just an interesting read (and sight) in general.

as for those hyperrealistic sculptures.. from a technical POV they are quite amazing. i don't know about the artistic value, but their off dimensions vs. the realism is sure bound to stir, in a mindfuck kind of way.

>>>bio grenade, or the onion pattern grenades, or the Forgiveness perfume bottle.
i like those. interesting, and with style..

whereas, the murderous child more like amused me, since she reminded me of the girl in the 'Exorcist' - the final stages.. :p

i remember your mentioning W. C. William before. had never heard of him up till then.
guess he must have a more extensive opus to have become noteworthy, other than these peculiar poems. the reason why they don't seem to affect me much is probably, that i've had a close encounter with ancient zen haiku many years ago, and these allude to those very much.

[silversolitaire.livejournal.com]

W.C. Williams is quite an influential American poet, along with Ezra Pound. I know that imaginist poems often don't appeal to people as they are seemingly random and non-sensical. But they're not really! When you look at them, they're always very carefully crafted. They have a meter and rhythm, every word is carefully placed. It just runs down like a fresh sip of water.

The most amazing thing about those poems though, in my opinion, is that you can see the image they are trying to evoke. The whole idea of imaginist poems is that it's basically a snapshot of a situation, put into words. It's not meant to have a particular meaning, it just records one moment in time that will never happen again. You know, like you sometimes see something incredibly beautiful and you just wish your eyes were a camera and you could record this moment forever. And these poets have managed that.

Take "The Red Wheelbarrow" for example. It's just this moment when the bright red wheelbarrow is glistening from the fresh rain and those white chickens are close to it. Just then it looks so brilliant, so vibrant. Without either, the image wouldn't have been the same. So everything depends on it.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

and you could say the exact same thing about many of the zen haiku, Basho probably being the most known, only he happened in the 17th century.
one of my favorites is

"In the moonlight a worm
silently
drills through a chestnut"

(i just love those few words in ways a cannot express. which is probably very silly, if told to someone who cannot appreciate it. :) )

so that's why i understand William.
only he's not the first for me.. :)