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Madonna, Mother of Re-Invention

 

What do stars do after their flames burn-out?  This occurred to me when I stumbled on Christina Aguilera on “The Voice,” a reality show purporting to mentor new vocal talent.   

 

In her prime, Aguilera was a pop singer of modest range.  Her greatest contribution to entertainment was a mesmerizing enactment of a waste management truck with a broken axle backing uphill to dump a load of overripe avocados into a mosh-pit. 

 

By itself, this was enough to guarantee Aguilera a place in history.  But she added pounds, went into rehab and soon was eclipsed by Dame Gaga, a moonbat from a distant galaxy with a penchant for tiaras shaped like intra-uterine devices. 

 

After that it was downhill for Aguilera, but “The Voice” rescued her from descent into irrelevance.

 

Everyone should be so lucky, because sputtering star careers are littered with the debris of desperate efforts to stay forever in public favor.  

 

Some shooting stars burn-out before their time, others hang around long after their sizzle fizzles.  Then there are stars that re-ignite.  Madonna hasn’t produced much lately, but she’s the Mother of Re-Invention and odds are the girl’s got new material.

 

Vincent Van Gouda,

Artist and Critic

Dreck for success Yo!

 

 

Every culture has a method for measuring success.  The stock market rises and falls with the hemline.  In the ‘60’s when the mini-skirt barely concealed women's upper thighs, the Dow Jones Industrials got regular peeks at a chorus line of steamy summer cuts.  In the ‘70’s the maxi-skirt dropped to the ankles and hid a sulking DJIA and an economic funk that was the trademark of Jimmy Carter’s 4-year experiment with incompetence. 

 

Popular culture measures success by raising the bar of excellence to lower and lower depths.  These days, entertainment splashes around in a subterranean vat of lurid vulgarity where the applause-meter is set to respond only to F-bombs, simulations of sexual congress between primates, and anything that extols the virtues of farts and fecal matter.

 

The downward spiral of popular taste is pioneered by Sarah Silverman, a faux comedienne who excavated a career from the lower colon of banality by imitating a turd.  Or listen to the Grammy-winning song “F-ck You” a witty ditty performed by a 3rd-tier gargler named “Cee Lo Green,” frequently mistaken for “See Mo’ Green,” not far wrong considering his "song" had 30 million hits on YouTube.

 

“Hits,” as you probably know, is 21st century buzz for saying a performer laughs all the way to the bank while others calm their stomachs with Tums.  Art is a reflection of the culture that burps it up.  One reason heart-burns like these gain in popularity is because the majority of pop culture consumers think style means class.  Well, there you go.  Urp! 

 

Earlier this year a young lady peeled off her panties for a vid-cam and plopped her bootay into a gooey cake.  The video was a stupefying visual of dimpled flesh squirming in chocolate mousse, topped with a game-ending – ta-DAH! – fart.  If hits on YouTube is a criteria, then performance art saw its finest entry, ever.  The girl’s act can still be seen on CakeFarts.com, but it got 20 million hits before it was banned on YouTube.

 

Fashion editor John Malloy wrote a column called “Dress for Success,” where he stated the highway to fame was paved with a natty wardrobe.  OLD school alert!  The NEW school yardstick is the Yiddish word “dreck,” code-word for cheap, worthless, trash, or more to the point, shit.  Dreck for success Yo!  C’mon!  We know you want it!  15 million hits of fame is yours for the drecking.  

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

Low on memory

 

Actor Guy Pearce starred in “Memento,” a quirky film about a man who survived a horrific personal loss.  The trauma of the loss prevented him from forming new memories, so he used a Polaroid camera to record people and events, otherwise he’d forget them almost immediately afterward. 

 

Polaroid eventually went out of business, so Guy bought a digital camera.  One day while he was busy taking pictures the camera stopped working.  The LED read “Out of Memory.”  Guy couldn’t get a break.

 

If we are what we have, when we lose what we have, what are we then?  If we are what we remember, as long as we remember then at least we still are.  But if all we have is memories, when we lose those, what we have then is lost and so are we.

 

Wait, hold the phone!  Where’s this going?  I thought I knew, but now I’m lost.  Must be low on memory.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

Present the case clearly with mystery

 

To the uninitiated, art school critiques are lofty and instructional.  To those who sit through them, critiques are loopy entertainment.

 

One of my instructors concluded drawing classes with high drama.  Student work was arranged in front of the model while the prof prowled the studio perimeter.  With long strides, he circled the seated students, occasionally eyeing the drawings the way a leopard stalks prey on a savannah.

 

His circles got smaller and smaller.  Finally he stood before the students.  Head tilted, hand to forehead, eyes closed, he peered at an invisible horizon.  Then with a grand gesture, he waved his hand in a wide overhead arc, followed by a modified dope-slap, and began his critique:

 

“This drawing,” he would start, “I see it but I’m not convinced the elements of the figure have integrated into a unified, believable whole.”  His critiques were usually lengthier, but “I’m not convinced” was a kiss-of-death.  It was his way of saying a drawing didn’t engage.

 

Painting and drawing are similar to preparing a case for trial:  there's gathering and processing evidence, organizing facts, plotting strategy, mounting a compelling argument, and finally convincing a jury beyond reasonable doubt that the assembled package presents a believable whole.

 

Yet this is where a trial jury and a jury of art patrons part paths.  French impressionist Edgar Degas said, “A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy.  When you always make your meaning perfectly clear you end up boring people.”

 

Art is successful when it is convincing and engaging, because without the pull of mystery or doubt, art patrons (the jurors) yawn and fast-forward to the next piece.  In the fickle court of cultural opinion, "draw-power" is king, and on the stand an art work that dazzles and mystifies is the star witness. 

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Shooting fish in a barrel of jokes made of clay

 

Houston artists went bobbing for apples in tubs of wet plaster.  If you like loopy performance art, it doesn't get any sillier.

 

The artists dunked their heads in a creamy clay mixture called "slip."  As the clay warmed and dried, the objective was to experience the thrill of a ceramic piece baking in a kiln.  But as Jay Leno says, "Where's the joke?"

 

Art strives to promote response:  laughter, fear, embarrassment or thoughtful-ness.  Admittedly, “What the F?” qualifies as a response, and at least WTF? is better than silence or a shrug.  But the problem with art that relies on the WTF? factor is this:  in the final analysis it panders to the lowest common denominator.

 

As a genre, performance art is heavily invested in WTF?. 

 

Andy Warhol made a film titled “Sleep.”  Yes, an 8-hour film of a sleeping man.  Warhol, concerned that sleep was becoming obsolete, decided the film would make an important statement.  And it did.  If his objective was to lull his audience into deep sleep, he succeeded.  Like shooting fish in a barrel.  WTF?

 

Art – whether painting, music, comedy, dance or writing – uses a variety of devices to pull off its magic: color, shape, texture, timing, rhythm and pacing.  And when these are seasoned with measured amounts of irony or contradiction, a work emerges that engages on many levels.

 

For an art project, I recall a classmate lay inside a coffin to experience death and burial.  In his critique, our instructor noted with a straight face the project could have been more compelling if my friend "put a little more life” into it.  My friend retorted he couldn't do that, because life was at cross-purposes to death.  

 

Now there’s the joke.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Rejecting the dejection of rejection

 

A terse email arrived yesterday:

 

“Dear Applicant, The jury has finished making their selections for the 2010 exhibition. The selection process was extremely difficult. Unfortunately your piece noted above was not selected for inclusion in the exhibition…” 

 

Without heavy emotional investment, I had casually entered a sculpture piece into a juried show.  Was I surprised when the pithy prose of the rejection letter sent a wave of discontent rippling over me.  It set me thinking.

 

Rejection has two edges.  One edge is a reminder of the fragileness of ego, particularly for those who depend on acceptance as a means to validate their worth.  On the other edge, rejection creates opportunity for growth – some people collect rejections like badges of honor.  A stack of ‘em means they're working their buns off – if it doesn’t defeat them, it’s making them stronger.

 

Okay, I’m over it.  Now what am I supposed to tell the sculpture piece?  It was so looking forward to being in the exhibit.  Unlike me, it doesn’t take rejection easily.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Wallpaper of noise and fury

 

Brother Joe, a fan of “Metallica,” claims the music of this heavy metal flagship band induces a trance-like state.  Maybe so, but not in the way you’d think.

 

In NYC we visited "Gildersleeves,” a seedy venue for D-list heavy metal artists.  The pub featured an armada of five guitarists and two drummers who specialized in ear-drum assault.  After half an hour, the band was merely back-ground noise – like battleships shelling bunkers at Normandy.  We left, shell-shocked.

 

Metal fans call that “tranced-out.”  I call it "noise-numb.”  If the mission of metal is to reduce brain waves to a level of stupor, or agitate it into a state of anarchy, it succeeds.

 

Heavy metal offers no shelter from the relentless bombast of discordant har-monics.  No modulation, change of tempo, nuance or progression.  There is no relief.  It prods listeners into realms of unimaginable mental instability.  Resist-ance is futile. 

 

What’s true for ears is true for eyes.  Heavy metal is like wallpaper.  Imagine an unspeakably shocking scenario.  Something that causes horrific revulsion.  Now see the image repeated in a pattern covering every square inch of every room in your home.

 

A wallpaper of noise and fury is not a mandala for comfort and meditation.  That's my opinion, and I like hearing myself giving it.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Drawing made easy – discover your inner Da Vinci

 

Drawing is not the exclusive property of artists. For those of you who don’t spray graffiti on art gallery walls or build towers of ballet shoes glued to tire treads, it's time to acknowledge your inner artist.

 

First, let’s get something straight. You can't draw a straight line?  Don't struggle.  Use a ruler or any available straightedge.  No more excuses.

 

Next, drawing is a process of “extruding” or “pulling” out elements of an idea. Fleshing out pieces, giving them mass and dimension, then fitting them together, is the path to starting an art work.  When we visualize an idea we're "drawing" in our minds, except we're not using a pencil.  

 

Let’s not stop there.  We draw all the time.  When we take in oxygen, we draw a breath.  We draw inspiration from persons of accomplishment.  We draw upon experience to guide us.  Wheeler-dealers draw up plans, attorneys draw up con-tracts.  And we draw where it’s least expected when we draw water for a bath.

 

Now, having mastered your first lesson, go and draw.  There's an excellent chance you'll discover your inner Da Vinci.  Draw it!

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

Anatomy of a tickler

 

In earlier posts, we've spotlighted female models and their assets.  Nadia's jiggly tushy...Rachel’s steamy cleavage...Heather’s dreamy gaze.  Yet artists don't learn anatomy gazing on woman’s form alone.  If that's so, where to start with men?

 

Culture has a clue.  It conditions us to visualize rippling delts and taught abs.  And it goes farther:  with a wink and a nudge, culture goads us to peel away the wrapping for a peek at the forbidden.  Forbidden is allure.  Allure sells.  Culture does that.

 

Let’s follow that thread.  Here's an excerpt from the catalogue of male models we’ve drawn and the equipment they’ve brought to the stage:

 

Robbie was an electrician and handyman.  Silver-haired, wiry and opinionated.  Couldn’t keep from talking.  One evening he used Viagra and couldn’t keep his equipment quiet, either. 

 

Bernardo was from Panama on a student visa. Young, rock-hard and ambitious. Held a pose with reflective serenity.  Always wondered what he was thinking while his drawbridge raised and lowered with the regularity of a swiss clock.

 

Clint was tattooed and goth.  Managed a piercing parlor by day, BDSM parties at night.  Two dozen silver rings pierced the underside of his plumage.  For a shower curtain?  "No," he said, "it's to make the ladies go wild."

 

The anatomy of a French tickler, of course!  Who would've guessed? 

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic

 

High art & politics: Babbling with dribbles and drivelling with babble

 

Art and politics in the same discussion?  Don’t scoff.  Art is highly-charged with political high-jinx and politics is low art on a lower road.  Both are theatre, and two unrelated items recently compelled me to view them under the same light.

 

First item is Houston Museum of Fine Arts' permanent collection which includes several Jackson Pollock paintings:

 

Pollock was a beatnik, an alcoholic misfit who acted out his frustrations on canvas and in weekend binges.  His paintings were complex webs of spatters and dribbles, best described as sneezes in Technicolor.  The wall notes next to his paintings laud his “astonishing control.”  Well, yes, given his drunken stupors, it’s to his credit he got any paint on his canvases at all.

 

Second item was a dissection of Obama's purported genius for oratory, in a political weblog http://newsrealblog.com where it was agreed that:

 

When the layers of praise are peeled away, all that remains of Obama is a semi-polished talking tool, a beef-and-boards actor reciting a hackneyed script.  His allies are speechwriters and tele-prompters.  Without these, his oratory is rudderless drivel with the cadence of a peg-legged hiccup, which causes some minds to wander while others shriek for Toastmaster intervention.  Orator?  Pfft!

 

And there it is, under one carnival tent:  Pollock the artist, babbling with dribbles, Obama the politico, drivelling with babble.  Pollock was drunk, that’s his excuse. Obama's excuse?  It's still in first draft.

 

Vincent Van Gouda, artist & critic