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     ## ##  ###    I S S U E   # 0 8 2        0 6 - 2 3 - 0 0   ###  ####   
    ###  # ###                                                   #######    
    ####  ###                  "Jason on Art"                      ###       
     #######                      by Jason                                  
      ####                                                                  

        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 to
 that to be allowed into their little club you have to be some acid-burnout
 schizophrenic color-blind weirdoes with latent pedophilia.  Now 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 jumping out a window in a grand finale.
 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 shot,
 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 to 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 vistas 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.  Sure, 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 spews 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.

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 # (c)2000 aNAda e'zine                              aNAda082 .*.  by Jason #
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