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Pissing on Duchamps

By on January 8, 2006 in But is it art?

duchamps fountainMarcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” the factory-made urinal that according to the New York Times is “considered the cornerstone of conceptual art,” got hammered this week by a French performance artist.

This wasn’t his first go at it either.

The artist, Pierre Pinoncelli, 77, had urinated and taken a small hammer to the piece — the urinal — in 1993. Pinoncelli claims he was doing performance art, and that Duchamps himself would approve.

Interestingly, the assaulted pissoire is actually a replica, one of eight created by Duchamps in 1964 to recreate the original presented (upside down) in 1917 at the Society of Independent Artists in New York.

The Society rejected it as neither original nor art, though they did not piss in it, nor take a hammer to the porcelain masterpiece.

Duchamps mona lisaI’m not sure if Pinoncelli has hired a lawyer yet — they have lawyers in France, right — but if he has one, I’d suggest they use this piece by Duchamps, as evidence in his favor.

Inspired by: If a urinal is art, can hammering it be, too?

Australian Rules

By on January 7, 2006 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

This post is under the “But is it art?” category, because hey, there is an Australian mixed media artist out there — Di Peel– painting with her breasts. Don’t worry, it’s not as sexy as it sounds.

And the Globe reports this morning that much of the Conservatives’ success in the election campaign so far can be attributed the Aussie PM’s federal party director, Brian Loughnane, who has been advising Harper.

Hmm. I wonder if Ms. Peel has been invited to spice up the Liberal campaign yet? Not that I’d like to see Mr. Martin’s breast art, but that certainly would be a new direction.

Alternate History Friday: Joan of Arc Girds Herself

By on January 6, 2006 in But is it art?, Skwibby fiction

Joan of Arc imageShe looked around her cell again, and realized that she was not going to be rescued, nor ransomed by the King. So, the question was: how far was she willing to take it?

When the Voices began, Joan had been just a girl. They told her they were Saints — St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret — and they had been quite specific about what they wanted her to do. They wanted her to drive the English out of France and bring the dauphin to Rheims, where the French coronated their kings. (She had always been somewhat suspicious that St. Margaret, a saint favored by the hated English, had asked her to do this.)

But she did what they asked. It wasn’t easy for a farm girl from Lorraine to lead an army in the 1400s — Hades, just getting to the army had been a major battle in itself. But back in those days, Joan had been a real believer. The Voices didn’t brook any disagreement. Even when she was shot with an arrow relieving the Siege of Orléans, she’d been unwavering.

She led the French to victory, liberating Rheims, and her Dauphin — that spotted weasel — became King Louis VII.

But really, the turning point for her had been the Battle of Jargeau; while climbing a ladder during an assault, a stone projectile had split on her helmet. It didn’t kill her, but it did drive out the Voices. Continue Reading →

Once upon on a pretty blue planet

By on January 5, 2006 in But is it art?, Odd Science, Skwibby fiction

Photo of pretty sunsetGla’k T’ung was never fond of humans, but at the same time, he thought it was a damned shame that they were almost extinct.

Of course, Gla’k didn’t really like the flavor of ANY hominid, so he never had an investment in the arguments about how many should be harvested off the third planet from the system’s star — the “Pretty Blue Planet with Tasty Terrors” as they once called it in the Humanliner advertisements.

Part of it was true. The humans were terrifying — a very warlike species.

Gla’k had been on the first expedition to survey the rich planet — a seemingly boundless wealth of life and prestigious protein that ran around on two legs. (Okay, mostly they sat on simple technology they called “couches”, but they were capable of bipedal locomotion, just like Gla’k’s own species, the Thringians.) Continue Reading →

Carnival of Satire #15

By on January 5, 2006 in Carnival of Satire

Carnival of Satire #15Welcome to the first Carnival of Satire of the new year! We hope you all had a nice break over the holidays, and will forgive our brief absence. Now onto the posts:

Madeleine Begun Kane at Mad Kane’s Notables updates a classic with Auld Lang Impeachment.

Elisson at Blog d’Elisson takes us on the line and shows us the horrors of Assembly.

Buckley F. Williams at The Nose On Your Face discovers that Burt Reynolds is starting to look like Dennis Weaver (aka McCloud) in “The Bandit” Outraged Over Border Wall.

Tommy at Striving For Average takes us to the Letterman show in The Rhetorical Post. Continue Reading →