Back in the day, art was simple. Sure, it sucked at first. I mean, hell, I could draw those frigging cave paintings. It doesn't look like it took a whole hell of a lot of talent, but it got better. Art moved from a few crude charcoal markings to intricate tapestries, stunningly life-like sculptures, and by the Renaissance, paintings that were better than real life.
Then something terrible happened. I suppose it started when science began crushing that wily worm Superstition under its boot that Monet and/or Manet (I can never keep those bastards straight) began painting things that only looked like pictures from far away. They called it Impressionism. Now don't get me wrong; impressionism is pretty cool. Hell, who needs an ultra-realistic picture of anything you can get a photograph of? Picasso was a visionary too, since even though his paintings didn't look like anything, he had a style that nobody can really copy.
Then came along Expressionism, and art died.
What the HELL is up with this particular "movement"? It seems that to be allowed into their little club you have to be some acid-burnout schizophrenic color-blind weirdo with latent pedophilia. Artists aren't particularly known for having a full box of crackers, but at least they used to be able to paint! At least they used their psychotic visions to fuel their creativity! At least they took time to study art in between bouts of self-mutilation!
Not artists today, though. I'm reminded of the Viennese "artist", Rudolf Schwarzkogler who featured a man wrapped in bandages holding a dead chicken against a light bulb before he jumping out a window in the grand finale of his life. Carl Landry got paid $12,000 for his sculpture, Equivalent VIII, which was simply a stack of bricks. Gilbert and George featured nude photographs of themselves wallowing in their own excrement. Some dude named Yong Ping Huang took an art book, put in the washing machine for 2 minutes, and called that art. Another latter-day psycho named Chris Burden had himself hot, set on fire, nailed, kicked down stairs, and bundled up in a sack in the middle of the road. Stanley Kubrick had to DIE to get publicity for a horrendously crappy movie that sucked in spite of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and naked chicks everywhere.
What the hell happened to art? Could I be so out of touch that I just don't get it? Am I too damn analytical to see the beauty in chocolate casts of corpses that had died of bullet wounds? Am I just not cultured enough to understand the sublime message in a block of fat shaped by the artist gnawing at it? Am I just too dumb to grasp the immensity of a bunch of underwear-clad people rolling around in a mixture of paint, sausage, chicken, and fish? Could I be such a tool of the mainstream media that I am blinded to the sculptures made of roadkill? Or are those people just fucking nuts?
Hmmm…fucking nuts… I sense and expressionist sculpture in the makin'.
Anyway, I think that, contrary to popular belief, these idiots have a complete lack of imagination. Take Spencer Tunick, who takes pictures of nude people sprawled across the street. Sure, that would be cool and interesting and original-once. The problem is, THAT'S ALL THAT IDIOT KNOWS HOW TO DO! It's like they have one idea their entire lives and just can't get rid of it! It's like that guy wraps canyons, islands, and even the Reichstag in canvas. Sure it looks kind of cool, but that's the only artistic initiative that imbecile has. You can have a unique style, but for crying out loud, use some creativity! Most people can spot a Picasso or a Dali from a mile away, but each one is profoundly different. How unique can you be if all you do is give yourself an egg tempera enema, squat over the canvas, and spew your art all over the place? I may not know art, but I sure know shit when I smell it.
Thank God they all either live in Europe or California.
