And tough man contest is not a bad analogy because have you seen videos of tough man contests? Reminds me of some of the threads we see...several dudes pummeling each other back and forth with no grace or skill whatsoever...
But if you think of it, we are the gladiators of the SC HS Football cyberspace. Though I do not consider what we do to be on the level of what the kids sacrifice every Friday night (not even close), in a way we are their brethren. We get out there every week and do what we do. Compared to all the nameless spectators who sit on the sidelines and read our threads, we are but a few, here to entertain, to cheer, to defend, to offend, to annoy and provoke, to enlighten, to educate, to ponder, to commiserate, and above all to join in fellowship.
And like the kids on the field sometimes we have our finest hour. Sometimes we fumble the ball. Sometimes we run the wrong way. Sometimes (just like the coaches we often curse) we’re too stubborn to abandom our losing gameplan in favor of a strategy that would bring us glory. And sometimes we throw that hail mary for all the marbles and sometimes we grind it out one down at a time. Some of us run the score up while others take a knee whenever possible.
And all the while we are being watched and read and followed. Some of us hated, some of us admired. I think a lot of the posters on this board have fans that they’ll never ever meet or even know about. For most of the threads that get heated I can almost guarantee that some nameless patron of the board is quietly pulling for one guy to come out on top while another nameless one is hoping the other one will prove to be the most clever.
But I gotta say that Penguin is a special case because here’s a guy in the bible belt, in a red state, on a HS Football message board who’s gonna let it ALL hang out about what his unpopular views are. Now I don’t always agree with Pengy and I think 74′s description of him as a “rascal” is sometimes justified. I know I’ve seen some posts by him that just make me shake my head. “Come on man, you’re better than that.”, I say to myself.
So anyway I couldn’t help thinking about Penguin when I decided to go in the direction that I’m gonna go in. Most of these posts have been arguably a little right of center. The week one “Southern Culture Of Honor” definitely would appeal to the gun-toting good ol’ boys that abound on the board. The most recent one about the fighter pilot is a pretty “manly” post with a decidedly conservative “kick-ass” theme to it. Even the one about randomness was full of numbers which guys love. If you don’t think guys love numbers then ask MXDAD about engines or ask Mike79 about the machines he runs at work!
So I thought I’d go a little right brain on folks this week. (Don’t confuse “right brain” with “right wing”. Right brains are artsy. Left Brains are analytical. Kind of the opposite of politics.)
I thought I’d talk about ART! And if you don’t like it blame Penguin cause I figure even the liberals should get some representation. And what’s more liberal that art or Penuin for that matter, right? So if you don’t like it blame Pengy.
Why talk about art? Well a lot of what I like to post in this format has to do with interesting things that I read in books. Over the summer I read a book called “The Know It All”. The author is a journalist who decided one day that he was going to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. He also decided to write a book about the experience.
Each chapter in this book coincides with each of the volumes of the encyclopedia. Each chapter follows a format that consists of the author sharing the most interesting things he’s read in that volume while also relating the humorous events in his day to day life that pertain to his goal of finishing the entire encyclopedia. It’s a fun, easy to read book that has a kind of a greatest hits list of the more interesting and unusual entrances in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
I DARE YOU TO READ THIS BOOK AND NOT THINK ABOUT GOING OUT AND BUYING A WHOLE SET OF ENCYCLOPEDIAS!
Yes, in case you are wondering, that’s just what I did. I’m looking at it right now sitting on my bookshelf. Did I read any of it you ask? Nope! Haha. Maybe one day...
Anyway, one of the entries the author tells about is kind of the impetus for me to write this post about art because it deals with an artist listed in the encyclopedia who really just cracks my stuff up because this is a guy who made a living doing some pretty bizarre stuff and calling it art.
I’ll get to him in a minute but first I wanted to say that years ago I was talking to this old timer who cut the grass at a local school. He happened to mention on this occasion that one day recently he noticed this big hunk of metal being put out in front of the school.
Turns out the school had comissioned an artist to create a metal sculpture that would be a permanent fixture at the school. Now as you can imagine this older fellow thought this was not only a pretty strange thing for a school to do but a downright waste of money.
He said he was all for art but in his opinion a few big pieces of metal welded together wasn’t art. Of course if the school had to have art he thought that they should just buy some framed paintings and hang them in the hallways.
He asked me what I thought about it. Did I think it was art?
Of course I told him that not having seen it I couldn’t really say one way or the other but I did tell him that in my opinion art was any kind of act of performance or creation that evokes emotion from another. So if he sees something and it’s pleasing then it’s art but if he sees something that makes him angry then that in a way could be considered art also. So if he looks at this hunk of metal and feels frustration or thinks it’s really stupid or thinks about it in any capacity at all then on some level the artist has achieved what he set out to do. I suppose that the piece fails only if people see it and don’t think anything at all one way or the other.
Now this old guy tells me, “Hey wait a second. Let’s back up just a bit....you’re saying that something that makes a person mad could be called art?”
“Umm...yeah, I guess that’s what I said.”
“So then I could just walk over to you right now and punch you in the face and I could call myself an artist!”, he laughed.
“Well, you got me there. I suppose by my definition you could, but only if I got mad...or happy...or thought about it at all, which I probably would. So yeah that would make you an artist.”. I laughed, knowing how absurd I sounded. Hey, I was young and idealistic then.
So anyway, getting back to this artist in the encyclopedia....
His name was Joseph Beuys...
He was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. (a pedagogue of art is one who studies strategies of teaching art.)
One of his most famous “pieces” or “performances” was titled...
“How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare”
Ok, read that again...
“How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare”
Now think about what this explains. Imagine what this guy might have done that he decided use that as a title. It’s almost exactly what you’d imagine. Wikepedia describes it thus...
“The artist could be viewed through the glass of the gallery’s window. His face was covered in honey and gold leaf, an iron slab was attached to his boot. In his arms he cradled a dead hare, into whose ear he mumbled muffled noises as well as explanations of the drawings that lined the walls.”
That’s right, as if walking around an art gallery while holding a dead bunny rabbit and explaining pictures to the dead bunny rabbit weren’t enough, he covered his face in honey and gold leaf and attached a slab of iron to one leg just to give it that element of randomness and uniqueness.
Now at this point some of you might be asking yourselves, “So what’s DeCav’s position on this? Does he think it’s art? Is he sharing this because he thinks it is profound?”
Hell no. I DO think it’s funny as heck though. When I first read about this I laughed my butt off. I got right on the computer and looked up info on this and when I saw the pics I laughed even harder...
This guy made a living doing this. I don’t know if he made his money off the private sector or was subsidized by government programs but I could imagine the outcry if the guy had been doing this in SC and getting a grant for it from the government!
Now I hate to sound unevolved and I don’t wanna be like one of those guys who bitches when a poem doesn’t rhyme but what really bugged me about this exhibit was the fact that the rabbit is dead. Holy crap it’s a rabbit! It’s hard enough trying to explain drawings to a rabbit when it’s alive!
Now if you read the wikipedia entry on this guy it actually quotes him espousing about his “Dead Hare” performance. Now at this point I don’t want to lose anyone so I’m not gonna post all of the quote because most of it seems a bunch of random and contrived symbolism and rhetoric but I’m reading it and just as I’m giving up being able to understand any of it I come across this bit...
”....Then, as I said, even a dead animal preserves more powers of intuition than some human beings with their stubborn rationality...”
Wow, honestly folks that one kinda hit me sideways. Why does that seem like a profound statement? Well it’s in the context of this message board that the statement makes so much sense. There is no area in my life at this point where I experience as much contention and stubborness as there is on this message board and I have to say that in some cases people can be as flexable and open to different points of view as a dead rabbit.
While I’m at it there is another picture that came up on Google that is a tribute of sorts to Joe’s exhibit. This one is called, “How To Explain Pictures To A Dead Joseph Beuys”...
Ok, so there is another exhibit that this guy is “famous” for. It’s really more a performance than the first and it went something like this...
In May 1974 Beuys flew to New York and was taken by ambulance (he was not ill or injured, this was part of the performance) to the site of the performance, a room in the René Block Gallery on East Broadway. Beuys lay on the ambulance stretcher swathed in felt. He shared this room with a wild coyote, for eight hours over three days.
At times he stood, wrapped in a thick, grey blanket of felt, leaning on a large shepherd’s staff...
At times he lay on the straw...
at times he watched the coyote as the coyote watched him and cautiously circled the man, or shredded the blanket to pieces
and at times he engaged in symbolic gestures, such as striking a large triangle or tossing his leather gloves to the animal; the performance continuously shifted between elements that were required by the realities of the situation, and elements that had purely symbolic character. At the end of the three days, Beuys hugged the coyote that had grown quite tolerant of him, and was taken to the airport. Again he rode in a veiled ambulance, leaving America without having set foot on its ground.
Now again I have to say that when I read about this I immediately went online trying to find pictures of this and the first one of him standing wrapped up in wool from head to toe with the shepherd’s crook sticking out of the top just cracks me up. I mean that’s a funny dang photo and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking the whole time he’s doing this...
“I wonder if I look like as much of an a$$-hole as I feel like.”
“Yes, this is the most profound artistic performance of the century. EVERYONE will understand this!′
“I hope this coyote don’t eat my dumb a$$!”
“You know it’s a good thing I came up with some kind of symbolic reason to be holding a big ol’ stick in my hand while I do this!”
Joe: “I should have listened to my mother.”
Coyote: “Why, what did she say?”
Joe: “I don’t know. I didn’t listen to her.”
And I definitely know what he must have been thinking during this moment...
“OH SH*T!”
Ok, now probably the funniest part of this performance is the totally random title he gave it...
I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME
As Beuys later explained: “I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote.”
Umm...whatever dude. Actually there is something appealing about the title. The piece seems kinda dreary (not as dreary or morbid as talking to a dead rabbit) but the title is unusually upbeat, right? It has a positive and optimistic feel to it.
I have to say that the more I have read about this guy the more interesting he seems. Is it art? I don’t know. It’s funny at least to me. And it’s interesting. And it definitely has one element that I think real art should have which is a little bit of some blood, sweat, and tears. I mean both of these works took a lot of effort on his part. At least in my book he gets an E for effort.
Ok, so now I’m gonna challenge the rest of you guys because this stuff could be improved upon PFT style if you know what I mean.
First of all I for one would pay a good $20 to have seen the “dead rabbit” skit not performed with the dead rabbit but instead Joe holding BYRNES#1 while mumbling in his ear and quietly trying to explain to him why nobody cares what he thinks about the number of state titles he believes Gaffney is entitled to.
Also a way to make the America exhibit more appealing and more stressful to Joe would have been to lock him in a room for three days not with a coyote but with Sparty. For an extra twist you could make Joe wear a gold helmet and instead of him being transported via ambulance he has to ride back and forth in a gold bus! Or course at the end of the three days he attempts to hug Sparty. That is if he hasn’t already beaten himself to death with his shepherd’s crook to end the suffering of having to listen to Sparty.
Ok, what other ideas do you guys have? Do you feel inspired to make your own artistic expressions? Share them with the rest of us!
So thinking about Joseph Beuys inspired me to do a little digging and see if there was some other guys (or girls) out there doing things as strange as that.
Turns out that as you would expect there is even stranger! Check this out...
Imagine walking down the street and suddenly noticing something that looks like a nightmarish combination of Chewbacca and Cousin It crawling at your feet. A 2005 performance art project in Vienna called “Marlene Hairy or In My Bathtub I am the Captain” was all that and creepier, because if you followed it, the crawling progressed to bathing. Artist Marlene Haring led about fifty onlookers across town to her home, then went into her bathroom and shut the door, which bore a sign reading “If you want to talk with me, you have to bathe with me.” Several people got into the bath. (I believe SLICK was one of them.)
And get a load of Jamie del Val! What is his bag? (pardon the pun)
Ok, apparently he walks around Madrid, Spain without any clothes on at all. What he IS wearing is a projector strapped to his chest with some small spotlights and video cameras strapped around his torso and aimed at his naughty bits. The images of his genetalia are fed into the projector and then projected onto “urban surfaces”.
The website I found this info on has this to say...
Is performance artist Jaime del Val overcompensating for some perceived shortcoming, or just really into phallic shadow art? Both and neither, according to him. Del Val, who walks the streets of Madrid projecting gigantic images of his penis onto urban surfaces, says buildings are “organs of power”. He also states that he’s seeking to promote himself as a “pangender cyborg” in protest against homophobia, surveillance, control and consumer society.
(notice I put a package over his package)
Ok so aren’t you glad you don’t live in Spain???
Now this isn’t really my cup of tea but I have to say this is some funny stuff. I mean think of a well known personality in South Carolina who is known for THINKING BIG and then compare him to Jamie del Val. Folks this guy has figured out how to teabag entire buildings!!!!!
PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT BOBBY BENTLEY!!!!
Ok, that was uncalled for. Really, I don’t know why I had to mention Mr. Bentley in that context. I guess I’m still sore at him over last years State Title game. We were robbed of our first undefeated season and I blame him above all others. We still haven’t recovered from that and I’ll go ahead and blame him for causing us to lose to the Bulldogs.
Ok, that’s stupid. We lost to the Dawgs because we weren’t prepared and they were. It had nothing to do with Bentley. Ok sorry, I won’t throw Bentley under the bus anymore, that is I’ll try real hard not to. And for those who missed it, Bobby made an earlier appearance in a post I made last year...
http://forum.palmettofootballtalk.com/v ... r&start=20” onclick=“window.open(this.href);return false;
Now so far I’ve been sharing some bizarre and arguably offensive stuff that some people call art. But I did find some stuff that was pretty dang cool. Check out what these guys did in Liverpool...
“Anyone with a fear of spiders would have been well-advised to stay away from Liverpool in September of 2008, when an outrageously large spider appeared on the side of a downtown building. This work of street theater came at an unusually large cost and scale – the £250,000 spider measured over 65 feet across and was operated by 12 people strapped to its frame, who coordinated its movements.”
Now THAT would be something cool to see in downtown Spartanburg!
And lastly I’m gonna share one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. This is an exhibit that I would absolutely love to see if I ever get the chance. Check out the following sculptures...
These sculptures were made by an artist named Ron Mueck. What’s equally fascinating about them is the scale. See here...
Not much to say about this really. It’s pretty dang awesome if you ask me and this pretty much nails it as far as what I consider true art to be. It blows my mind AND this guy is not throwing buckets of paint at a canvas and calling it art. He is really putting in the hours and I think he deserves every dime he makes. I can’t really say that for all the other artists I’ve mentioned but I’ll let you be the judge. Feel free to google Ron Mueck to learn more about him!
Well I’m about arted out for this week.
Hope you enjoyed this Penguin inspired post!
Peace Out,
DeCav
