Artsnark

Eric Burns has this thing about adding metaphors to his lexicon. I thought I'd share a few of my secret art terms (and their origins) with you:

The Andy Warhol Defence

One time I made this artwork, and one of the guys in my class got really worked up about it. The artwork was pretty emotional and the atmosphere around it was fairly powerful and when he had a go at me the rest of my class got really defensive (we're a pretty close bunch in some ways). But instead of trying to argue with him I sort of just avoided saying anything because I didn't need to say anything. The class was already on my side and from what I could see there was no reason for him to be attacking me.

I talked to the lecturer afterwards and she said it reminded her of Andy Warhol. When pressed for a meaning behind his works Warhol would often say, "I dunno" or "How should I know? Why don't you ask that guy there?" So basically the Andy Warhol Defence is the act of avoiding answering a question you don't feel like answering. This isn't limited to art, if you're an Aussie then you may have seen Denton interview Mark Latham on Enough Rope. I was pretty disappointed by Latham, I had hoped he might be able to answer Denton's questions properly but I guess he was a politician and that kind of thing can be hard to move away from.

A Beavis and Butthead Moment

This one came from another student at uni after she had finished filming a performance of mine which involved me painting on my chest. As we watched the footage she told me she had a "beavis and butthead moment" where part of her brain stopped thinking about what she was watching as art and started sniggering at me "touching my boob".

A Beavis and Butthead Moment is I guess when you see or hear something that can be amusing on an infantile level. For example we're doing speeches at the moment where we critically analyse the work of another student in our class in the same way we would an established artist. In passing I asked one of the girls in my class "who are you doing?" and we all had a good snicker at that. He he "doing".

Emperor's New Clothes

Or as my Dad often says "That's a bit emperor's new clothes-ish" It's a fairly simple term that my Dad and I use when we talk about pretentious artworks. The Emperor's New Clothes is a story about a man who sells the Emperor a pair of the finest clothes that can only be seen by "intelligent" people (or at least people that aren't fools or something). So the Emperor pretends to be able to see them so as not to appear foolish, as do all his advisors and members of his court. The Emperor then wears his new clothes as he parades through the town and all the people pretend that they too can see the clothes until a small boy points out that the Emperor is completely starkers.

This is a simple metaphor that comes from an equally simple viewpoint. Considering I attend a conceptual art school I don't really use this one very much myself, but it's a favourite of my Dad's. He loves to mock and deride pretentious artists and artworks. I've found that most work (especially acclaimed work) makes more sense if you try and understand the context in which it was made and the concepts behind the work. But my Da thinks understanding takes all the fun out of being rude and opinionated.