9/03/2006

Vanessa Baird

50 comments:

Painter said...

scottish/norwegian

kelli said...

Actually that is very funny Painter, you little scamp.

jpegCritic said...

modersohn becker but with a dose of reality

youth--less said...

Baby's a boy. No need to pity im.

Back to LF, so maybe it is about shame--love and fat liberation notwithstanding. Or maybe its the end of western civilization. in a heap on the floor. shameful history

kelli said...

Well we didn't call Leigh Bowery "grotesquely large " and he was a big person.

youth--less said...

instead of love maybe I should have said compassion. the compassion missing from western civilization. jesus bullshit nowithstanding

kelli said...

What would Jesus do?

arebours said...

what would Journey do?

youth--less said...

My dotter is 14 and she really likes Journey. I asked her--do you like Journey ironically or do you really like them? She said--both.

kelli said...

smart answer

zipthwung said...

cagey

The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.
No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.
There comes John, and I must put this away,--he hates to have me write a word.

youth--less said...

Not so much smart answer (tho dotter is smart) but an honest one. Due to the fact that she views Journey from her perspective as 14 yr old. I, on the other hand have a hard time seeing them as ironic (or good), as I lived thru the time when they were current, and can't really forget the actuality of that. What they meant at the time they actually made the music.What was happening all around.

World history and art history are like that too.

That's the hard thing about being a parent too. You see the bullet coming straight at your kid, and you want to say duck or take them out of harms way, but you dont know if you are imagining the bullet, or can only see it from your perspective. You have to think your kid can see the bullet more clearly than you can, and they can handle it, but you're not sure. Your kid could be delusional, and you know of course they are. They want to write sins, not tragedies. And they always blame you for pointing out the bullet, as if you pulled the trigger. Did you? In a way you did.

kelli said...

not sure what to think about child rearing. always think of them as small people with no defenses. Just seeing them makes me worry. Like the time I saw a little kid try to buy some french fries with change and the lady would only take bills and then his mom dragged him out and called him fat. Jesus.
Two questions related to the painting-
-Can you have irony and sincerity at the same time
-why is this baby painted like a Soutine chicken

zipthwung said...

I think shes reading the Joy of Cooking by Wilhelm Reich.

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.

And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--

youth--less said...

Kelli--was the mother fat? I bet even if she wasn't, she thought she was. She's actually trying to protect him in a twisted way.

Maybe he will teach her how to be free.

I read a little, I watch a lot of TV. When my son was a baby, I watched the William Kennedy Smith rape trial on Court TV. That bastard was guilty as the day is long. When my dotter was a baby, I watched the Rodney King deal on CNN.

kelli said...

Ok but what about the lady who wouldn't take change? Poor but trying not to think of self as the poorest. Funny how so much hate is really self-hate.
I think Painter is being provocative with these posts but really pointing out how much ugliness, misery or decrepitude is in the eye of the beholder.

youth--less said...

You can have all things simultaneously. We do.

Does anything in this painting suggest irony? Perhaps the asshole pattern on the beadspread? Just kidding. I don't see irony here

no-where-man said...

trainspotting

youth--less said...

gotch nwm. and i wont even demand that u elaborate.

jpegCritic said...

Is lack knack, smack, crack, slack or wack.

Anonymous said...

Ooooh Chucky!

no-where-man said...

i still see this Scene (>> to 8:40) to but i have never been a mother or in the same room as a baby for more then 5 min's perhaps we can only see as far as our window of perception allows, screams "lack" to me if not material mental.

Anonymous said...

Chucky, actually, I just enjoyed your read.

no-where-man said...

chunky yes agreed - however heroin junkies are quite mundane to me - as predictable as they come. i guess i did not see the "baby" at first i saw what looked like a needle and cage - the baby is a little sureeallly - to think and like it was just born - i read it more symbollic like a early christian painting for the illieterate,

Anonymous said...

Phew!
The truth is, chucky, I'm still tying to put a finger on what irony is!

no-where-man said...

we live in an a-moral society. in your heart is the war over terroism or keeping a standard of living?

i have a choice not to love this painting. i don't.

youth--less said...

If you're not bitter, you're not paying attention

kelli said...
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kelli said...

Doug and Chucky I missed you. I think you are the same person and am saddened by your reflections on the girth and bitterness of middle age. But if you are 34 Doug and Chucky are each 17.

kelli said...

Strangely I like Chucky better. Doug is too naif. Chucky's wounded innocence? There have been two Tom Cruise references recently. He's a nutcase and all but why isn't Mel Gibson losing his studio deal? Nothing makes sense Chucky.

kelli said...

Chucky wasn't even being sarcastic just playful. But please explain. Do these crusty paintings really hearken the end of compassionate civilization? Mel Gibson. Tom Cruise. WTF? Addled,delusional religious zealotry versus the kind that incites the coming apocolypse. Is the key getting hammered first?

no-where-man said...

responding to "moral decline and future failure"

and that does look like an abortion to me - which sometimes i think is the moral decision and i speak from experience on that.

kelli said...

eschaton + scatology = escatology

kelli said...

I think she is studying the manual for the C.P.A. exam. Irony versus sincerity: I thought the good thing about Western Civilization was the fact that its syncretistic religion collapsed. It's the remnants that worry me.

kelli said...

Irony is the way we protect ourselves from our own beliefs but what defense is there from the beliefs of others. Peter Abelard doubted and the bastards cut his privates off. Doug might know this.

kelli said...
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kelli said...

Never understood the difference between fascism and any of the other belief systems based on Romanticism and purity. There is a good book about Reagan at Bitburg. Not smug- worried as fuck. I think I like terminum and signum more than eschaton. More doubt.

zipthwung said...

Its the Doug and Chucky dialectic.

Charlene von Heyl is ironic? DO I do her a disservice by assuming she is totally sincere? Indeed I do.

Dippy post-senile abstractions make her more cynical and bitter than I am<>am I?

I quoted the short story "the yellow wallpaper" above - read it in high school english class - someone pointed out the reference to me.
I think thats where the danger zone is - like a chunk of yellow ice from a plane.

I myself exist in a Kubrician space, composed of perpetual blood floods, frozen office mazes, elevators to the dawn of man (down of course), and monoliths to obscenely inhuman abstractions.

Maya Lin crayola-liths set in frottage heaven?

If I lost my dad to an ideological war against forced labor camps, I'd be glad I wasnt in Siberia, but still, I'd miss my dad.

You know chucky, Confucius (Kung-Fu Tsu - actually) said you have to have right relations at home before you can go skiing in Iran. Im not a jet setter so Im more concerned with domestic terror - like this painting.

DIGRESSIONS are what makes art fun, not the message. If you have a didactic message use writing, it has less noise to signal, and it smells better.

In conclusion this painting is an illustration, is unappologetic in its illustrativeness, and by its authors own admission owes more to childrens books than Hogarth - an ironic stance that is in fact, not ironic.

I'm not near any trains but I do have a flight path - plane spotting was fun when they flew under the storm, low, like cruise missiles. Eyes wide shut.

zipthwung said...

Its the Doug and Chucky dialectic.

Charlene von Heyl is ironic? DO I do her a disservice by assuming she is totally sincere? Indeed I do.

Dippy post-senile abstractions make her more cynical and bitter than I am<>am I?

I quoted the short story "the yellow wallpaper" above - read it in high school english class - someone pointed out the reference to me.
I think thats where the danger zone is - like a chunk of yellow ice from a plane.

I myself exist in a Kubrician space, composed of perpetual blood floods, frozen office mazes, elevators to the dawn of man (down of course), and monoliths to obscenely inhuman abstractions.

Maya Lin crayola-liths set in frottage heaven?

If I lost my dad to an ideological war against forced labor camps, I'd be glad I wasnt in Siberia, but still, I'd miss my dad.

You know chucky, Confucius (Kung-Fu Tsu - actually) said you have to have right relations at home before you can go skiing in Iran. Im not a jet setter so Im more concerned with domestic terror - like this painting.

DIGRESSIONS are what makes art fun, not the message. If you have a didactic message use writing, it has less noise to signal, and it smells better.

In conclusion this painting is an illustration, is unappologetic in its illustrativeness, and by its authors own admission owes more to childrens books than Hogarth - an ironic stance that is in fact, not ironic.

I'm not near any trains but I do have a flight path - plane spotting was fun when they flew under the storm, low, like cruise missiles. Eyes wide shut.

jerp said...

Irony is one of the public faces of compassionate sincerity. Unfortunately it is often confused with a kind of hermetic sarcasm.
I think irony is like a kind of gallows humor but is not necessarily a response to tragedy and isn't necessarily funny.

Sometimes it seems that the term is used to signify a strategy associated with academic elitism but I think this association is usually a defense.

kelli said...
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kelli said...

Let's not forget fascism was originally an idealistic movement which appealed to young people and targeted the original doubters the Jews. They also really liked art but only the correct, sincere kind which is never ugly like Lucian Freud. I like to go back to Ockam's theory of descriptions and the good old days when our religion fell apart. But not completely. Enough remained to get George Bush through the dark night of the soul and drunkenness and aren't we all better for it? I don't think they still cut off the privates of nonbelievers but depending on country of origin may attach electrodes to them. Plan of defense: create sincere alternate system of beliefs, make my own compost and gather with other right thinking individuals in coffeehouses. Scratch that. Bad plan.

zipthwung said...

oooh ooh I got something on irony - it was used by courtesans as part of courtly sparring matches. And its is perfected to high art when the court looses touch with the people. SHortly after this immimentization of the eschcaton, lots of people lose their heads.

I read that some where but I cant remember where (its not my idea - I think it was presented as historical fact and as a cyclical thing).

Maybe arts function is to keep the management in touch with what the people are thinking? Like a suggestion box?

Irony being a sort of Brave New world management attribute that only alphas have?

No, the folk betas have allways had irony. Its the management that thinks they dont. Then high irony becomes mere bitterness - revolt.

Choose life, make stinky cheese for the ivory tower.

zipthwung said...

I opened a book to a random page - to a Mary Kelley work "Daily Schedules" where she lists the schedule of a shrink wrap opperator Joanna Martin, 21. Joanna has a one year old son.

Apparently Joanna has daycare.

I brought up the idea of an ivory towered class, but I think this means you idealize the underclass - something that made mockery of Marxism in the end. I learned that in first grade mixing with the riff raff. Leaders gain power from there followers or "fans."

The role of the fan is of course to maintain rigid hirerachies, or "towers of power". WHo is your totem?

Sarah Charlesworth has some nice stuff to say about immanence and transcendence within the system, too.

youth--less said...

I just wonder how you read irony in a painting. This one for example. How can you tell? What tips u off?

jerp said...

I think the irony of this, if it is present, is in the narrative depicted - like here I am with this baby that looks like a giant tree frog and I've got this book and a tube of caulk and now is this what I thought I'd be doing a year ago, ironic, isn't it? - but that would just be me projecting. But that's what I like about these paintings that depict people in situations - most leave me cold unless there is something less resolved narratively that keeps me wondering.

But in terms of 'painting' I too would be curious to know how to read it.

jerp said...

thanks Chucky. You posted before I finished and were much more eloquent.

zipthwung said...

Maybe the face part of the painting.

Oh and the knowledge that if you paint for a while style becomes sort of irrelevant as a demarcation between good and bad, in the same way that someone who is good at chess can play checkers too, though maybe prone to overthinking things. it becomes not an issue of skill, but personality - the most highly prized personality being the one that can render photorealistic images of muffy the pet chow chow doing what it does best - mirror the personality of the owner. Now YOUR pet can eat gourmet hot dogs.

Phantompain. Severed arms. Im a writer right? Im writing.... I guess Im failing at painting. Im a failed everything. My system is fucked.
See you at level c, bitches.
Talk to the hand.

youth--less said...

On the facial expression: that's a "what-have-I-done" face if I ever saw one...

no-where-man said...

damn it fine.. i turn in my "citizen of the Arts" fez.