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| Shameful! Disgusting! |
What was it? A painting of Jesus Christ in a gay orgy with the disciples? The Union Jack festooned with pus? An installation of freshly slaughtered goats? Anything involving Gordon Brown in a jock strap?
No, (hide the kids) the exhibition highlights an artist who can actually paint and whom the public actually likes!
3 comments:
Quadrat seems to be incensed at the idea of art being interesting to the Great Unwashed. That is, he rejects on principle the concept that anything the non-elite' like is worthy of space in "his" museum.
We see in him the inevitable evolution of the "Common Man" described by Tom Wolfe in "From Bauhaus to Our House"- the Bohemian theorist who believes that only truly "enlightened" people matter, and that all such people are exactly like him. And who believes that the purpose of art is to be a way for various clerisies and compounds of the anti-bourgeois "avant garde'" to speak to each other, in codes that are as baffling as possible. Even to those inside said compounds and clerisies.
I'm sure Wolfe would say that Mr. Quadrat has achieved the ultimate evolution of his type, having flown in ever-smaller circles until he finally has, with a squawk, disappeared up his own anus. To reappear in the sixth dimension as a needle-thin umber bird.
I've always wondered- why umber, particularly?
cheers
eon
Wonder why the media always speaks of "Leftist Intellectuals" and "Rightist Populists" but never of Leftist Populists or Rightist Intellectuals?
Ironmistress;
Actually, the traditional media speak of "intellectuals" but never use the term "leftist"; they prefer "liberal", when they apply any modifier at all. They rarely bother, considering it unnecessary; in their minds, it's "understood" that any true "intellectual" is automatically a "progressive" ("liberal"/leftist).
"Rightists" (i.e., non-leftists) are automatically defined as being too stupid to ever be granted the dignity of being called "intellectual", except possibly in conjunction with words like "eunuch", "wasteland", or the prefix "pseudo-".
As for "leftist populism", that's what the media refer to as "middle of the road moderation". Notably at the New York Times.
I prefer to call that brand of "populism", "radical demagoguery" no matter which extreme end of the political spectrum it emanates from.To me, the differences between a Ron Paul (R) and a Dennis Kucinich (D)(aka the Crazy Uncle and the Village Idiot) are so slight as to be functionally irrelevant.
BTW, here in Ohio, Kucinich is called a "liberal intellectual" in his home town of Cleveland. Those of us Buckeyes outside of Cuyahoga County and the Mistake On The Lake refer to him as "Dennis the Menace", after Hank Ketcham's cartoon character.
Granted, that's sort of an insult... to the original cartoon character. But we call them as we see them.
cheers
eon
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