Suck Art.

I was sent a "escher and modigliani hybrid" piece of "art" yesterday. I say "art" in quotations (and lower case) because that is how the artist sent it to me.

That piece above, by the way, is not it, nor is it an Escher or a Modigliani...its a little something Bert Christianson calls "Cleavage".

Look at it again.

Stare at it.

You know you want to.

It reminds you of something, doesn't it?

Kinda Madonna and Child on ecstasy?

Weird.

Escher is a no brainer Art man- he did that curly cue shaving picture of a person's face. "The Rind". Popular modern. Its just missed "cult classic"...a bit more high brow than the notorious elevator into the ocean (which in my opinion is about as devoid of a thinking audience as The Scream).

Modigliani is a bit freaky for me. Anytime he painted a portrait the subject always had these hollow black eyes in a weird alien shape. No like.

Lauded for his weirdoness...individuality if you will, (which I dont get because frankly, with those eyes, they all look the same to me), Modigliani doesn't suck. You may like it, or hate it, but even a poo'head AP Art History high school student will give him props.

Plus he's got the equivalent of street cred in the Artist World. He died a disease ridden drunk, hooked on pills and depressed.

Plus, he was a Jew. Nuff said.

Escher died of cancer in some Artist Colony- boring? Yes. But he was good enough to get away with that type of stand-up lifestyle. My thought: Modigliani needed a healthy dose of high power angst to make him cool enough to be worthy of renowned and all that that word implies.

Which brings me to the question- what makes Art cool? Good? Worthy of discussion- or at least more than a two second glance? And on a counter note- what makes art suck? Tough questions which many philosophers, art scholars and people generally more brilliant than I am have tackled with gusto. But they're often too wordy, explaining every fucking reason behind all their fucking reasons. Drives me nutts.

Here's my rule of thumb: Any time a piece of work that is mass produced by a poster company and then sold to college students across the country for $10, you've got a problem. Ditto if some dude sells your piece of work pre-framed for $20 at a flea market or out of his car at a gas station. I apply my rule to the lowest of the low "Blue Line on White Canvas" to the notorious best of the best, like Monet.

Sorry Monet but The Water-Lily Pond now officially sucks.
No seriously. Its sucks so fucking bad it hurts.

"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I
needed it"
--John Cage


"It reflects no great honor on a painter to be able to execute only one
thing well -- such as a head, an academy figure, or draperies, animals,
landscapes, or the like -- in other words, confining himself to some particular
object of study. This is so because there is scarcely a person so devoid of
genius as to fail of success if he applies himself earnestly to one branch of
study and practices it continually."
--Leonardo da Vinci

Drinks?

My grandmother used these goblets (they're not "glasses" damnit) while I was growing up.

Between my Papa and I, they have all been broken except for one- which I keep wrapped up in a special box in the garage. I had two, but when the second to the last one broke, my heart just couldn't take watching the last one go. So it got packed away along with all my other life's memrobelia thats too precious to cope with losing.

That is, of course, until my mother decided it was finally time to give in to my begs and drop way too many $10's on these sexy baby blues.

I'm so excited.

Retail therapy is fucking pathetic.