I made the mistake of taking an art history class at a community college not too long ago. A friend of mine tried to warn me about the kinds of people I would be forced to interact with in a class like that. I didn't listen. Half way through I realized that I had made a mistake. I wasn't learning so much about art as I was other people's very enthusiastic yet uneducated opinions on life. Here's the thing about art that drives me nuts. Everyone's opinion gets to be correct no matter how idiotic it may be. In an art class full of community college students, who are usually all too ready to share their views in the first place, those idiotic opinions are actually encouraged. For some reason art instructors are under the impression that all ideas are valid. Despite the warnings I received, I failed to factor all of that in before signing up for the class.
Just because I can't stand hearing the nonsense opinion of an amateur art critic doesn't mean that I don't have any appreciation for art myself. I learned a few things from that class despite the instructor's unfortunate tendency to allow students to share their views. First and foremost is that you can always identify an idiot by showing him a piece of art and hearing what he has to say about it. I also learned that unless you have an overinflated opinion of your own world view, art museums are boring. And finally, I learned that calling something art is a culturally acceptable way to justify pornography, homosexuality, bestiality, rape, vandalism, and all manner of other behaviors that I my parents taught me are immoral.
Given my art instructor's complete failure to teach anything meaningful or relevant, I had to look elsewhere for guidance. It was my anthropology instructor that semester who cleared up the mysterious secrets of art appreciation for me. You see, art is universal; meaning all human cultures have a form of art. Art is a form of communication that appeals to the aesthetic and the abstract. Art is always about something and it is a refection of the culture and its values of which it originates. So the artist creates a piece of art that tries to say something in an abstract way, and everyone else argues about what it is supposed to mean. Ultimately everyone learns something about themselves.
Now that is my basic philosophy of art, but there are some finer points I would like to go into. I could talk about different mediums and applications of art in society, or I could talk about styles and techniques. None of that is really all that important in understanding the universal importance of art. It doesn't matter whether or not you are looking at a sculpture, or a painting, or a drawing. It doesn't matter if it's greek, medieval, or neolithic, or post modern impressionism. All of that overly complicated stuff is really only interesting to actual art critics and wannabe art critics. For the rest of us, what I discovered in my studies is that for a piece of work to be considered art, it only actually needs to incorporate one or more of what I call "the three basic elements." Art must be either weird, naked, or gross. If the artist can combine two or more of the basic elements, such as weird and naked, or weird and gross, then so much the better. Truly brilliant artists will be able to effectively communicate their ideas by incorporating all three elements together.
Now art must be weird. Anyone who has ever spent time looking at M.C. Escher's drawings should already be aware of this. Let's face it, as interesting as his sketches of endless staircases are to look at, that is some weird shit. Most modern art falls neatly into the category of being weird.
Art must be naked. This should be one of the first things that you notice about most art. There is something or someone naked. For example, Venus De Milo. Who cares if she doesn't have any arms. She's topless. Definitely art by nudity. How about Michelangelo's statue of David? How many of us have tried in vain to appreciate the overall technical mastery of this sculpture but couldn't because our eyes were inexplicably drawn towards his well crafted penis? It's certainly naked, and that's why it's art. Put some damn pants on, David. You naked bastard.
Art must be gross. I submit Marcel Duchamp's Fountain as a primary example of gross art. He signed his name to a urinal and called it art. People pee into that thing. That certainly is gross. That's why it's art.
So now that I have established what art is, (It is a form of communication. It is a reflection of culture. It must be naked, weird or gross, or any combination of the three.) I am going to create some art to provide an example of what I am talking about.
Since I know that all good art must incorporate the three elements of art I will begin with something weird. Let's say a pineapple on a bicycle:
That's pretty weird right? You don't usually see a pineapple riding a bicycle. It doesn't really make any sense either. How can a pineapple ride a bicycle? They don't even have any legs. Even if a pineapple could ride a bicycle, where would even go? They don't have brains to make decisions like that. So as you can see, by a simple combination of a pineapple and a bicycle we have created art.
Since a pineapple on a bicycle is weird, it technically qualifies as art, but it has yet become really good art until we incorporate a second of the three elements. We already have weird, now let's add some naked. For this I will cover the pineapple with breasts like so:
So, as you can clearly see, I have now successfully combined weird with naked. I could have just as easily implemented the naked element by covering the pineapple with penises or vaginas, but the use of breasts serves my purposes adequately for this demonstration. Just to spice things up a little bit, all of the breasts used in this piece of work are from famous people. So you might recognize a couple of them. For those who may be curious, I will include a key at the end of this article that identifies the particular breasts with their owners.
So a pineapple on a bicycle with several random breasts attached to it is starting to look more and more like something you might see in an art museum. I am not finished yet. I have weird and naked adequately represented here, but I haven't got anything particularly gross. Adding gross is one of the more challenging elements of art. It needs to be gross enough to churn the stomach of the viewer, but not so gross as to be banned from an art museum entirely. There is a fine line you must walk when implementing a gross element to a particular piece of work.
After thinking about it for awhile, I have decided that there is nothing grosser or more horrifying than cannibalism, but I would like to contrast it against something innocent and soothing. So I think I will have the pineapple eating a baby like so:
(I don't know why that stupid black line is there next to my art. It wasn't supposed to be, but I am too lazy to go back and edit out now. Stupid computer. Just ignore that part)
Eating babies is pretty gross. I can't think of anything grosser right at this moment. I just hope that it's not so gross that no one will take the time to appreciate the work that I have done. It would be a shame if the idea I am trying to communicate was missed because I made something so gross.
That's all three elements of good art rolled into one image. Am I not brilliant? So now that I have created an image that incorporates something weird, something naked, and something gross, what does it all mean? Art is a form of communication right? And a reflection of culture too. In all honesty I mostly put this image together as a joke. It's not really supposed to mean anything at all, at least not to an intelligent person. If you were to show this image to some of my former classmates and not tell them that it's not meant to be taken seriously, you might get some interesting responses.
One might be inclined to say "The artist clearly is indicating that life is like a baby eating pineapple on a bicycle with multiple titties." Well that seems pretty obvious.
How about "The pineapple is on a bicycle. Since the pineapple is trying to lower his CO2 emissions by using more a eco-friendly means of transportation it must mean that if we don't do something to stop global warming now, a hedonistic pineapple will eat all of our babies."
"The pineapple has breasts, and it is eating a baby. The artist must think that it's okay for a woman to abort her pregnancy as long as she rides a bicycle to the clinic."
"The titties in this image are quite stimulating. They make me want to eat pineapples and make babies."
"There are six titties, but they are all different titties. No two titties on the pineapple are the same. The non paired titties must represent mastectomies of breast cancer. The pineapple and the bicycle represent a healthy lifestyle. The baby represents a fear that is devoured. So if you are a woman and you are afraid of breast cancer, taking care of your health will eliminate that fear. Clearly this multi-tittied pineapple is trying to convince women to get checked for breast cancer."
Since I already said that the point of all this was to be a joke, it seems pretty silly to read into the meaning of the baby eating pineapple on a bicycle with multiple titties. This image should have absolutely no meaning to an intelligent person, but can the same be said for an unintelligent person? Try as I might to communicate absolutely nothing this image still has value for it's target audience. I am of course talking about the idiots (who, incidentally, all happen to vote Democrat) in my art class. If you stand and stare at this image long enough trying to explore the deeper meaning of it all, the message that should scroll across the marquee of your brain is "I am a pretentious asshole with no idea of what I am doing or talking about." If the baby eating pineapple on a bicycle with multiple titties communicated something to you, and it was something other than "you are a pretentious asshole with no idea of what you are doing or talking about," then I have failed as an artist.
It is to my anthropology lessons that I will turn to once again in conclusion to all of this. All cultures are valid. Every human society has culture and no one culture is better than another. That is very open minded right? Here is the kicker. We are allowed to be critical of cultures. As long as you do not define your own culture by the way you negatively react to another, it's okay to not like certain things other people do. For example, I do not have to like communism, but that doesn't mean I am losing any sleep over it. I do not have to like the fact that the Nazis decided that it was okay to oppress the Jews. I do not have to like that abortion is acceptable in our society. Since art is a form of communication that reflects a culture all art must be valid within that culture. That does not mean that I have to like or appreciate or even respect all forms of artistic expression. Some of it sucks. Some of it is just plain stupid.
All of that having been said, let's take a final look at my baby eating pineapple riding a bicycle with multiple titties. In this instance, in which I am trying to communicate absolutely nothing at all, art has become a double edged sword. I put together a bunch of nonsense hoping for it to be nothing more than nonsense. Try as I might to create an image with no meaning, it does seem to suggest that I believe that not all ideas within our society are valid. Anyone who looks at that image and thinks that it is a valid expression of some kind, is a pretentious asshole with no idea of what they are saying or doing. (Incidentally, these are the kinds of people that can be counted on to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 election for no good reason.)
And finally, as promised. Here is the key with all of the breasts clearly labeled as to who they belong to. Enjoy pervs.
In case you are wondering, it is a 1943 Lee Enfield Rifle No4 mark 1* .303 bolt-action repeater, a British rifle produced in the United States presumably under the "Lend Lease" program. I did a little research beforehand and decided that the Lee Enfield was the weapon that I wanted. It fit all the right criteria. It's supposed to be powerful, accurate, durable and within my price range. Also, it's over 50 years old and it counts as a collector item so it doesn't require all of the typical hassle and paperwork of gun ownership in California. This one is in good shape with good rifling and matching serial numbers all the way around. I got it for $300 cash out-the-door which was the upper limit of my budget and about what I expected to pay. Here is a close up of the markings on the side that you probably can't read anyways.
It used to be that California had the gun show loophole that allowed criminals to purchase weapons at gun shows and get around all of those pesky background checks and waiting periods. True you can still purchase a shotgun or rifle with out as much hassle, but there is still documentation and certain rules that need to be followed. With new legislation in 2006 that is supposed to limit the sale of weapons to criminals at gun shows, the rules are supposed to be even more restrictive. You are not even supposed to be able to make private party transactions without brokering the deal through a licensed gun dealer that documents the transaction. That's all true according to my research at least. The reality that I witnessed while there seems a might bit less formal. I was under the impression that the host of the gun show venue would give a damn about the law. Apparently everyone at the gun show really only cared about the orgy of weapon purchasing that went on there.
