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ALEX'S REVIEW This work of "art" is a fascinating piece. It is rare that one comes across something that so wonderfully exemplifies the duality of man. This piece masterfully depicts man's need to control as well as to nurture. The lines are bold and the image is quite frankly haunting. Especially poignant is the saddle prong. This is an outstanding example of the ineluctability of fate. The lesson from this piece: Do not run from your desires, or they will grow into something really, really scary. |
Sorayama Myth #16
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JASON'S REVIEW The great Michaelangelo is said to have mastered the line. That is to say, he had tamed the ability to control the thickness and texture of one continuous line in such a way as to give it life and meaning. But did he ever think to paint a chick with a bit in her mouth and a saddle with some pointy ass strap-on welded to it? No. Perhaps the most important, and most subtle triumph of this piece is the use of the human form to express the ethereal concept of hope. We are confronted with an image of submission and hierarcy, which at the same time reminds us the formality of the bastardization of humanism in favor of unspoken aesthetic tendancies toward chicks with big cans. This juxtaposition does not confuse, rather it clarifies that age-old desire not only to capture the true form of the human condition, but to think of new ways to show nudity in an attempt to call it art. A saddle? C'mon. |
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ALEX'S REVIEW As art fancy pants like to quip, "Art cries out for a great alternative space." I wonder if they would enjoy the aromas oozing out of this alternative space. Ah yes, a chick with big cans enjoying the company of a large snake. How to catagorize such a moving piece? I offer these random thoughts: The masterbation imagery alone seems to bring this work into the pantheon of the postmodern carnival. However, the snake's forked tongue on breast image reeks of Neo-Expressionism. Then again it could be just another piece of tastless clip-art on the internet. I don't know. My meager mind is not capable of breaking down such a complex image into nice neat labels, be they delphic or not. When I look at this piece, I find it harder than ever to avoid my perplexity at what fantasy art really means. Is it escapism or just plain deviant behavior? Hard to say. Is this piece headed for the Guggenheim? Likely not. However, that in no way diminishes its importance not only in the realm of art, but to society as a whole. Naughty ladies coupling with snakes represents an ideal which we all strive for. That, of course, is freedom. Not freedom in the "god bless America" or the Nelson Mendela sense; but in the "I will supersize that value meal" or the "yes, I will have another" concept of freedom. One should not press this piece too hard. It works best as an unexamined feeling. It subtly allows one to agonize in the image without feeling hurt. Unless, that is, you give a whit about either decency or good taste. Let's face it folks, this piece of tripe really satisfies. Satisfies what is another question. |
Eve's Temptation - by Matt Hughes
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JASON'S REVIEW In this masterpiece, Hughes evokes a drama of evacuated space by first covering the surfaces and then proceeding to void them. He uses a variety of processes unified by a circumscribed fastidiousness that seems both self-critical and quasi-sacral in character: laying down color with small brushstrokes; systematically separating, dissolving, draining, replenishing and sealing pictorial areas as one would in a cleansing rite of purification. A rhetorical consciousness of materiality is made evident precisely through his deliberate evisceration of materiality. Like how he takes a canvas and paints a naughty snake writhing on a naked chick. Hughes suggests that a rupture has taken place between blocks of color that are boldly wedged, cantilevered or suspended between the two figures, one a chick, and the other a snake. What significance the name "Eve" has is beyond me. At times the overall result is extremely, if manneristically, seductive. The once-opaque green block is now a shroud of its former solidity. A tiny rivulet of boobie flows down from the edge of the square, a violation which complements the breakdown of the snakey-snakey. Hughes calls painting into question even as he reiterates its processes, effaces his own gestures as he probes the medium, but the work suggests that an imagistic power resides in the capacity for critical self-reflection. Such a reconceptualization of classic abstraction doesn't preclude a latent irony that is in keeping with a present-day awareness of abstraction's limitations, but it reinvigorates contemporary painting nonetheless. It also warms the loins, unless you are afraid of snakes. |
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Copyright The Gamehole 2001