President Erect
Via Stephen Hicks comes another staggering artistic triumph. In the cryptically titled Join or Die, San Francisco-based artist Justine Lai depicts herself getting busy with America’s deceased presidents. The results suggest a collision of 1970s porn magazines and painting by numbers. As the series of 18 x 24” canvases is being produced in chronological order, these necrophilic entanglements currently extend only to Ulysses S Grant and his hitherto unrecorded spanking fetish. Sadly, those of you aroused by the prospect of seeing, say, George W Bush getting it on with Ms Lai – with all the profundity that entails – may have to wait a while.
There is, given the subject matter, the usual mouthing of bollocks:
I am interested in humanizing and demythologizing the Presidents by addressing their public legacies and private lives. The presidency itself is a seemingly immortal and impenetrable institution; by inserting myself in its timeline, I attempt to locate something intimate and mortal. I use this intimacy to subvert authority, but it demands that I make myself vulnerable along with the Presidents. A power lies in rendering these patriarchal figures the possible object of shame, ridicule and desire, but it is a power that is constantly negotiated… I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness… One could also imagine a series preoccupied with wearing its “Fuck the Man” symbolism on its sleeve. But I wish to move beyond these things and make something playful and tender and maybe a little ambiguous, but exuberantly so. This, I feel, is the most humanizing act I can do.
Somehow, I remain unconvinced that painting long-dead American presidents doing the nasty with a young woman is “subverting authority” in any meaningful sense. Nor am I persuaded that Ms Lai has “moved beyond” the “Fuck the Man” symbolism that evidently preoccupies her. Though one might note her eagerness to “insert herself” into the project – which raises the question of whether Ms Lai’s ego has merely led her to seek out celebrity by bedding powerful men, albeit figuratively. Readers will no doubt decide for themselves whether Ms Lai’s handiwork is “playful,” “tender,” “exuberant” and “humanising.” Though in fairness she has set up any number of dubious quips about “vice presidents,” “sexual congress” and “secretaries of the interior.”
See also: A Mighty Intervention.
Ms. Lai is obviously an awesome talent, but I feel slightly cheated by the lack of feminists and lesbianism in her work.
I look forward to images of her eating Margaret Sanger’s minge, rimming Ruth Ginsburg and what could be her greatest work, shoving her head up her own ass.
What, no Slick Willie?
Personally, I can’t wait to see the rest of the series. I curious to see how she handles TR’s big stick and just how hot it gets in the kitchen with Harry S. Truman. Actually I’m flooded with transgressive ideas after viewing these images. How do I contact this woman David?
And sadly no Johnson. Though I’m sure he’ll eventually pop up.
Wayne, you can convey your deep, unspeakable feelings via Ms Lai’s website.
“I approach the spectacle of sex and politics with a certain playfulness….”
Hmmm, looking at the above, she might want to bring a little artistic talent to her next outing instead.
It looks like the images from “The Joy of Sex” -but even less erotic.
http://21.media.tumblr.com/zkfIIODV5hnu7w938aeD8EdHo1_250.jpg
You’re right Brian, they do resemble the illustrations from “The Joy of Sex”, but with a dash a Yoko Ono thrown in.
http://funnyartpictures.com/pics-funny-stuff/?pictures/music-covers-posters/john-lennon-and-yoko-ono.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8984449@N02/2426694373
Judging by this tired old crap, someone’s getting screwed.
Is that meant to be Buchanan getting the strap-on treatment?
Forgive me, if I observe yet again, that Ms. Lai is only interested in “dead Presidents”!
(The folding and green kind!)
She’d make a good pornographic illustrator. (I’ve always said pictures are better than photos anyway.) And these are quite funny. But does she really think that using words like ‘patriarchy’ and ‘demythologizing’ will turn it into art? They have quite the opposite effect, in my opinion: they rob the piece of any intrinsic interest. To announce that something is ambiguous only serves to strip it of ambiguity. To point out its playfulness is to kill any hint of playfulness. And how can anyone be moved by a work of art that comes with an explanatory ‘statement’? I like the spanking one best.
The Buchanan painting (#2) is a bit creepy because she looks like a child.
I did a series of paintings of me have sex with the President’s WIVES. Want to see the paintings?
(Hint: Michelle is the one with paper bag over her head…)
Wow, not only is it crap art (you can tell she must have just used a lot of photographic reference, because once she gets to the president’s faces it all turns to shit) but she’s one of those people who thinks she can talk her way out of the fact that it’s crap art.
Sometimes I’m really sad to be an art student and describe myself as the slightly more reputable ‘Illustrator’.
That is very provocative, those pictures. It’s like when you do laundry and you take your clothes out of the dryer and you realize you’d forgotten to empty the lint thinger before you started the dryer so now you empty it but there’s a lot more lint than usual and you think gosh that’s a lot of lint what collects in there when you forget to empty the lint thinger.
The second one looks like a grey David Cameron.
This bimbo just don’t get it. It’s not that these men were human like us. It’s that when the times required it they came through with feats of courage and intelligence that made this the greatest country on earth.
The problem Ms. Lai has at this point is coming up with what to do next. One day art worlders will be saying, “Well, this new series of paintings of her getting it on with the each of the dogs of the Soviet space program is provocative, I guess, but she’s really lost her edge since that series of paintings of her getting it on with each of the reincarnations of the Dalai Lama…”
I admit, I sniggered. Though as Witwoud says, the wankspeak about playful subtexts, bla bla, does rather take the fun out of it.
“To announce that something is ambiguous only serves to strip it of ambiguity. To point out its playfulness is to kill any hint of playfulness. And how can anyone be moved by a work of art that comes with an explanatory ‘statement’?”
Yes, that is a bit of a drawback artistically and there’s a whiff of unattractive desperation to it all. She’s reduced to *telling* us what the paintings *should* be, but aren’t. The pretentious “statement” only shrinks the impact and makes the whole thing seem rather silly and unconvincing. But without the obligatory waffle about “patriarchy” and “subversion,” all she has are some unremarkable paintings. She has to *tell* us how subversive she is. How sad is that? Her bid for being special and important relies almost entirely on a claim we don’t believe.
“…this new series of paintings of her getting it on with the each of the dogs of the Soviet space program…”
At least there’d be a niche market for that kind of thing.
So that’s what Monica was doing. Here we all thought she was just a naive and pathetic young victim, but what she was really doing was sacrificing herself to subvert authority and demythologize Bill. We oughta give her an award or something.
Funny how Clinton, Kennedy and a few other Presidents who would likely have been more than game for getting jiggy with the sumptuous Ms.Lai aren’t included. Isn’t she a little like the prim young thing who won’t let the boys kiss her (Yuck!), but secretly dreams of being ravished by the history teacher?
“…this new series of paintings of her getting it on with the each of the dogs of the Soviet space program…”
.
Lai lays Laika?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika
Unlikely…
She’s a true original: she managed an entire paragraph of art bollocks without saying ‘late-capitalism’…
“one might note her eagerness to “insert herself” into the project”
Ach!
I like these. They’re funny and will upset the right people.
She needs to practice her foreshortening though. And would it kill contemporary artists to learn about glazes and washes?
I don’t like artbollocks any more than I like tax returns. But it can seriously harm an artist’s career to skip either. You do what you have to in order to get by. Maybe after the revolution (or the singularity, or privatization – delete to taste)…
Dirigible,
Are they upsetting? To me, it’s just that they’re not terribly good paintings or even well-composed, and the “controversial” concept is undermined by declaring its “subversion” very, very loudly. It looks like a vanity project, done badly.
I agree that “art bollocks” is all but obligatory in some quarters and the problem is institutional; but artists should consider the possibility that mouthing such bollocks makes okay art look bad and bad art look absurd. And given how quite a few artists want to be taken very seriously indeed, that presents them with a problem.
I think Ms Lai, got the idea for her “art” from her fantasies about the current President.
Yuk!
“Are they upsetting?”
To the right people. But I am the wrong people, so I find their technical inadequacy the most offensive thing about them.
“artists should consider the possibility that mouthing such bollocks makes okay art look bad and bad art look absurd”
Only outside the artworld. Monty Python fandom can look pretty silly as well from the outside…
Restoring Dignity to The Office
That’s no cherry tree… Somehow, I remain unconvinced that painting long-dead American presidents doing the nasty with a young woman is “subverting authority” in any meaningful sense. Nor am I persuaded that Ms Lai has “moved beyond” the “Fuck the……