I was just coming in to make the same comment, after googling for an image. Neither the 'critics just have dirty minds' or 'the artist is giggling to himself about plastering an obvious giant cock across the El station' seems unlikely.
I need a picture. My brain has been deeply conditioned to associate Lotuses with femininity, and is shutting down processors fried by trying to imagine this thing without a picture.
6: Now I feel like a big priss, but if those are representative, I bet I'd kind of sympathize with the critics. Those look very humanoid/biomorphic to me -- something in that style that looked sort of like a cock would look really like a cock.
I think his work is kind of unpleasant, in a biomorphic kind of way. Why can't people just say "I don't want that on my subway station entrance because it's ugly and I'd rather not look at it"? It would be so much more dignified than this "looks like a cock" sort of argument.
Haven't you guys thought that the purpose of true art should be to make you feel uncomfortable? Uncomfortable with your fucking bouzhwah pieties? Fucking wankers.
What I want to know with respect to the Kundera link in 19 is, where's the Gogol? If your date can't appreciate "The Nose", is he or she really worth your valuable while?
Would you believe, that I just got back from the store, brought in the mail, and just read the print version of this story? With picture? I'll attempt a scan.
It's not so much the penis as the testicles. Possibly I just have a foul mind, but looking squarely at one of those, so you'd see two of the round things at the bottom, it looks totally like a shaft and a ball sack. Something ghastly is happening up top, but the bottom still looks like balls.
I've seen a penis or two in my time and if Medina's penis looks like that, he needs to get to a doctor ASAP. Or perhaps to a marine repair facility to have the barnacles scraped off.
I thought this was one of the less unattractive of Garber's bits o' art. Mostly they look like poo covered in bottle caps or coathangers on crack.
But then I live in a town full of unsophisticated people who don't appreciate art. Or so we were told when Cuervo was forced to remove a large blue and orange sculpture they had donated to the city and which the residents loudly condemned as a piece of shite.
I'm online during the day from my son's room. I just pulled off the shelf, What It Like To Be a Building, by Forrest Wilson. I used to read it to my kids, with its cartoons of guys squished as they served as columns, stretched as they served as beams, etc.
Now we know what it feels like to hold a building up with your...
Really, this biggest problem here is that those sculptures don't look like penises at all, yet they are still closer to resembling penises than lotus flowers.
re: 19. I was entertaining those thoughts on TULB, and I decided to read on to the author's recommended date books. The review of the first book makes me totally not trust her. Specifically, this:
or (God help you) you can try to peel your way down further and try to figure out what this novel is actually about. Bulgakov's masterpiece is a sly onion of a book, though, and if you think you've understood it, it probably means you're not reading it right
I've been reading today about (again, always) the failure of art, how visual art was compromised before it had even begun to explore its options, so to speak, and that it was a foregone conclusion that art would wind its way into Conceptualism and then tread water, forever, until the world lost interest or perhaps recategorized it—much in the same way that "craft" lingers as the category of materials from which "art" distinguished itself. Whether or not something looks like a penis? I'm so out of touch.
apo, there's a wall-mounted de Monchaux at the Hirshhorn here in DC, or there was the last time I visited the museum basement. It's like the one you linked but, er, shaven.
I guess I see a cock there, if I look sideways and squint, but I really think the people who threw their hands into the air and squealed must have simply had dick on the brain.
How can there not be a picture accompanying the article? I am deprived of the information necessary for making up my own mind.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:54 AM
It would be better if it was adorning the back of the Kimball Avenue Brown Line Station, rather than the front.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:55 AM
I was just coming in to make the same comment, after googling for an image. Neither the 'critics just have dirty minds' or 'the artist is giggling to himself about plastering an obvious giant cock across the El station' seems unlikely.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:55 AM
Actually, the sculpture sounds pretty cool.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:57 AM
I need a picture. My brain has been deeply conditioned to associate Lotuses with femininity, and is shutting down processors fried by trying to imagine this thing without a picture.
Posted by Saheli | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:58 AM
Yeah, I was disappointed, too. Here's some of his other work.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:58 AM
I'm picturing a closed bud on a thick stalk, IYKWIM.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 11:59 AM
The link in 6 kind of explains it. His work is evocative of organic subjects, mostly poo.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:00 PM
6: Now I feel like a big priss, but if those are representative, I bet I'd kind of sympathize with the critics. Those look very humanoid/biomorphic to me -- something in that style that looked sort of like a cock would look really like a cock.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:02 PM
8: And we all know that cocks and poo shouldn't mix, because cockapoos are abominations in the eyes of the lord.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:02 PM
Garber's on crack. Surely this is not the first time people have identified his work as being phallic-looking.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:09 PM
I think his work is kind of unpleasant, in a biomorphic kind of way. Why can't people just say "I don't want that on my subway station entrance because it's ugly and I'd rather not look at it"? It would be so much more dignified than this "looks like a cock" sort of argument.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:11 PM
Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable, even the stuff that doesn't look like cocks.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:12 PM
8 made me giggle.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:13 PM
11: While vaguely phallic (dear god, it's coming unwrapped!), that looks more like a thumb to me.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:14 PM
Haven't you guys thought that the purpose of true art should be to make you feel uncomfortable? Uncomfortable with your fucking bouzhwah pieties? Fucking wankers.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:17 PM
Fuck you, Clown. I demand kitsch!
Posted by Ze Bouzhwahzee | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:22 PM
Maybe what the US needs is more and more obvious cock and pussy–themed sculpture in public places. Did this guy's critics think of that?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:38 PM
This conversation is beginning to remind me of college.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:39 PM
Cock and pussy art?
(Or this?)
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:47 PM
What I want to know with respect to the Kundera link in 19 is, where's the Gogol? If your date can't appreciate "The Nose", is he or she really worth your valuable while?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 12:58 PM
Or "The Overcoat", if you want to show that you appreciate the tragic things in life, too.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 1:01 PM
in related news, the artist keeps on whistling dirty songs.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 1:14 PM
Would you believe, that I just got back from the store, brought in the mail, and just read the print version of this story? With picture? I'll attempt a scan.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 1:30 PM
I have the picture, but not a place from which to show it.
To whom should I send it?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 1:46 PM
IDP, you're the bestest. The post has been updated.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 2:59 PM
Okay, Garber's being a dick. Or is at least sculpting them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:06 PM
Uh, how does that look like a penis? I'm really not seeing it.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:07 PM
But when I see this, that's what I see [a penis].
Medina might ought to schedule an appointment with his urologist.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:07 PM
It's not so much the penis as the testicles. Possibly I just have a foul mind, but looking squarely at one of those, so you'd see two of the round things at the bottom, it looks totally like a shaft and a ball sack. Something ghastly is happening up top, but the bottom still looks like balls.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:10 PM
It looks to me like what happens if you slit a sausage strategically and put it in the microwave.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:10 PM
30: Most of us come with just two of them, though.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:11 PM
I sort of see the balls thing, though I think DaveL is right, but I also see a bunch of golf clubs with bent shafts.
Will we next be banning those Snickers ads that say "HungERECTomy"?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:13 PM
Both my children hooted when they saw the picture. Thanks to my daughter, who checks in here occasionally as Colchava, for trimming it. The picture.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:13 PM
I sort of see the balls thing, though I think DaveL is right,
This seems like the sort of claim you should be sure about.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:15 PM
If you licked the insides, you would get high.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:15 PM
I definitely don't see a lotus flower though.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:17 PM
I've seen a penis or two in my time and if Medina's penis looks like that, he needs to get to a doctor ASAP. Or perhaps to a marine repair facility to have the barnacles scraped off.
I thought this was one of the less unattractive of Garber's bits o' art. Mostly they look like poo covered in bottle caps or coathangers on crack.
But then I live in a town full of unsophisticated people who don't appreciate art. Or so we were told when Cuervo was forced to remove a large blue and orange sculpture they had donated to the city and which the residents loudly condemned as a piece of shite.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:17 PM
32. But not G. Washington.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:17 PM
Something ghastly is happening up top,
I'm online during the day from my son's room. I just pulled off the shelf, What It Like To Be a Building, by Forrest Wilson. I used to read it to my kids, with its cartoons of guys squished as they served as columns, stretched as they served as beams, etc.
Now we know what it feels like to hold a building up with your...
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:20 PM
to Dr. B in 19:
That's hilarious! Thank you.
Posted by yeti | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:21 PM
Really, this biggest problem here is that those sculptures don't look like penises at all, yet they are still closer to resembling penises than lotus flowers.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:24 PM
re: 19. I was entertaining those thoughts on TULB, and I decided to read on to the author's recommended date books. The review of the first book makes me totally not trust her. Specifically, this:
or (God help you) you can try to peel your way down further and try to figure out what this novel is actually about. Bulgakov's masterpiece is a sly onion of a book, though, and if you think you've understood it, it probably means you're not reading it right
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:27 PM
I'm proposing a Cathy de la Monchaux for the neighborhood garden playground.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:27 PM
Most of us come with just two of them
Many artists have four testicles.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:30 PM
44: Lamest. Goatse. Ever.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:31 PM
44. Okay, ick.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:31 PM
But can you get hog roast on the barbecue of life?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:33 PM
Actually, I really like that, Smasher. I also like this one, but y'know, I'm weird like that.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:38 PM
The whole piece.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:40 PM
Maybe he was thinking of this Lotus Blossom
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:41 PM
30: LB -
And what does this look like to you?
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:44 PM
Hopefully what it looks like is not, in fact, what it actually represents.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:49 PM
52: pure yikes.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:55 PM
I've been reading today about (again, always) the failure of art, how visual art was compromised before it had even begun to explore its options, so to speak, and that it was a foregone conclusion that art would wind its way into Conceptualism and then tread water, forever, until the world lost interest or perhaps recategorized it—much in the same way that "craft" lingers as the category of materials from which "art" distinguished itself. Whether or not something looks like a penis? I'm so out of touch.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 3:57 PM
apo, there's a wall-mounted de Monchaux at the Hirshhorn here in DC, or there was the last time I visited the museum basement. It's like the one you linked but, er, shaven.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 4:00 PM
And then there's this...
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 4:03 PM
55: Is that the gist of the Kuspit article? I like his writing but he always depresses me.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 4:19 PM
And what's wrong with sculptures looking like penises?
Posted by John T | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:27 PM
Here's a penis sculpture.
Yeah . . . that's Kuspit. Danto might be a lighter touch for you.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 7:41 PM
"craft" lingers as the category of materials from which "art" distinguished itself.
"distinguished itself" s/b "spat upon"
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:02 PM
I guess I see a cock there, if I look sideways and squint, but I really think the people who threw their hands into the air and squealed must have simply had dick on the brain.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 08- 2-06 8:27 PM
Craft forever, art never!
I'm pleased to see DE return.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 2:07 AM
61 -- I believe you would also need to dele 'from' for that edit to work.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 5:56 AM
62: Just throw your hands in air!
And wave 'em like you got dick on the brain!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:25 AM
threw their hands into the air and squealed
I thought this was customary on seeing titties, not dick.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:47 AM
Try trimming, Matt, and see if that improves the reactions.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 08- 3-06 8:10 PM