When Francesca called her little brother, aged 46, a "shit stain" there was a graver insult intended than merely calling him any of the array of synonyms for shit itself; Francesca, in her choice of epithets meant to say that Tony was not just some form of fecal matter but rather the trace that said poop, turd, or "snickers bar" would leave behind. He was (and always had been in her critical elder sister's eyes) not substantive enough to have the form and weight of anything including a "stool". Tony was complicit in this defacing of his character. Perhaps to please his wild-eyed sister, he was dedicated to deserving this douchey reputation. He was diligent in cultivating both his own repulsiveness and his invisibility. He was a brown skidmark in a baggy pair of white briefs, slightly faded and eclipsed by this week's version of the worthless stain.
And this brings us to the challenge the artist confronts in both wanting the illusion of having created something permanent and important while recognizing that this very idea--"something permanent and important"--is an illusion itself, a big gaseous bubble of humbling pi that mocks the very egotism in making art itself. Impressed with our own cleverness, we wink at the audience. We are standing there in our skivvies unabashed and self-congratulating. (The cool, night air feels good whistling up our vanquished Dixie.) The South, so it seems, will indeed, rise again; as will the paintings from all the so-called "masters," always finding somewhere "to hang." Basically the best and biggest museums--the louvre, the hermitage, the cloisters--are nothing more than clotheslines crowded with the surrendered confidence of every "creative type" left out to dry. See these briefs as white as paper? In spite of a healthy swig of bluing, they are all still sullied. The sunlight is merciless. Even from this distance, the light reveals a childlike scrawl of crayola brown or bronze or rust that is nothing less and nothing more than a fading shitstain.
No comments:
Post a Comment